Russian Army in Poti, Withdrawal Stalls, Georgia Says

By Helena Bedwell and Henry Meyer

Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Georgian officials said a Russian withdrawal stalled today as forces returned to the Black Sea port of Poti a day after U.S. President George W. Bush ordered a military-led humanitarian aid effort.

``The Russian troops have returned to Poti,'' Georgian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Khatuna Iosava said by telephone. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of Russia's General Staff, said Russia has no troops in Poti.

Russia informed Georgia's Interior Ministry that its troops will remain deployed around the city of Gori, near South Ossetia, for up to three days, ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said. Nogovitsyn said Russian troops are transporting seized Georgian military equipment in Gori.

The troop movements came two days after Georgia and Russia accepted a European Union-brokered peace plan for ending five days of fighting over the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia that began Aug. 8. The war, Russia's first major foreign offensive since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, has strained relations with the U.S., which considers Georgia one of its closest allies in the region.

President Dmitry Medvedev said in televised comments that Russia will support the decisions of South Ossetia and another breakaway Georgian region, Abkhazia, about the legal status of their self-proclaimed republics.

Kosovo Precedent

Medvedev met in Moscow with South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity and Sergei Bagapsh, the leader of Abkhazia. Both regions seek international recognition of their independence, citing Kosovo as a precedent. No country, including Russia, has recognized either region. Kokoity and Bagapsh signed the EU peace plan.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in Tbilisi after talks with Saakashvili that Georgia's territorial integrity ``must be preserved.'' Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that ``de facto'' the former Soviet republic's territorial integrity ``is limited by the conflict in South Ossetia,'' the Interfax news service reported.

Bush said yesterday that the U.S. expects Russia ``to ensure that all lines of communication and transport, including sea ports, airports, roads and airspace remain open for the delivery of humanitarian assistance and for civilian transit.''

U.S. Aid

``The Russians aren't leaving Gori,'' Temur Iakobashvili, Georgia's minister for reintegration issues, said by phone. ``They're planting bombs in buildings and blowing up infrastructure.''

Kakha Lomaia, Georgia's national security chief, said earlier that as many as 800 Georgian police officers were entering Gori, located 70 kilometers (about 45 miles) from Tbilisi, and were meeting no resistance from the Russians.

A first U.S. military plane carrying humanitarian aid landed in Tbilisi yesterday. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in France today to discuss the peace plan with President Nicolas Sarkozy before making a visit to Georgia tomorrow. France holds the EU presidency.

U.S. military aircraft and navy ships will deliver aid to Georgia, Bush told reporters in Washington yesterday.

Russia is committed to the terms of the truce, Medvedev told Sarkozy in a phone conversation, the Kremlin said late yesterday.

Peace Plan

Nogovitsyn said Russian forces in Georgia have been observing a cease-fire since 3 p.m. on Aug. 12 after Medvedev called a halt to military operations. He said the Russian peacekeeping mission includes weakening Georgia's military so that it ``can't even think about repeating its attempts to attack this or that territory.''

Lavrov said Russia is observing the peace plan, when he spoke with Rice by telephone yesterday. During the conversation, Lavrov rejected ``insinuations'' that Russia had broken clauses of the six-point European Union plan, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its Web site today.

The EU peace plan calls for the withdrawal of Georgian and Russian troops, renunciation of the use of force, an end to all military operations and a commitment to making humanitarian aid freely available in the conflict zone.

Medvedev ordered a halt two days ago to the military campaign, which was sparked by fighting between Georgia and South Ossetia. Both Georgia and Russia accuse the other of planning an invasion well in advance.

100,000 Displaced

Russia won't speak directly with Saakashvili after he committed acts of ``genocide and ethnic cleansing,'' Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said in comments to the British Broadcasting Corp.

``We offer him peace, but not friendship,'' Ivanov said.

The UN estimates that about 100,000 people have been displaced by the conflict, according to a statement published on the Web site of the UN children's fund Unicef.

South Ossetia and Abkhazia broke away from Georgian control in wars in the early 1990s and Russian forces have been stationed as peacekeepers in the regions under a Commonwealth of Independent States mandate. Most people living in the regions have Russian passports. Saakashvili said on Aug. 12 that Georgia is quitting the CIS.

The West sees Georgia as a key ally in the region, in part because it has a pipeline that carries Caspian Sea crude oil to Western markets, bypassing Russia. Bush backs Georgia's bid to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which Russia views as a security threat.

To contact the reporters on this story: Helena Bedwell in Tbilisi hbedwell@bloomberg.net; Henry Meyer in Moscow at hmeyer4@bloomberg.net