US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ruled out a US military intervention in the conflict between Georgia and Russia over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Two days after a French-negotiated ceasefire in the Caucausus, Gates called on Russia to step back from what he called its "aggressive posture", warning Moscow that it risked harming its contacts with the United States and NATO for "years to come". In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed talk about Georgia's territorial integrity, saying South Ossetia and Abkhazia would never return to Georgia by force. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who visited French President Nicholas Sarkozy on Thursday, is due to fly on to Georgia on Friday to ask Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to sign the six-point ceasefire accord. Russian troops moved around three Georgian towns on Thursday. Moscow denied Georgian claims that mines had been laid. Senior US sources say the accord would require Russian withdrawals, leaving only its peacekeepers who had previously been in the breakaway regions.
(Deutsche Welle)
more info >>
<< Back