LONDON —

NATO denied provoking last month’s conflict between Russia and Georgia, a spokesman for the alliance said Friday, after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accused it of sparking the conflict.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, meanwhile, pledged “full solidarity” with the ex-Soviet republic, following an informal meeting with the 26-nation bloc’s defense ministers in London.

In a separate development likely to anger Moscow, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his Czech counterpart signed an agreement clearing the way for stationing US forces to operate a missile defense radar in the Czech Republic.

Asked for his response to Medvedev’s accusations earlier, NATO spokesman James Appathurai said: “There is nothing provocative about supporting Georgia’s democratic development, nor anything provocative in helping them meet their aspirations to come closer to the Euro-Atlantic community.”

Medvedev had said NATO “provoked the conflict” between Russia and Georgia last month, adding that Russia was “being pushed… behind an Iron Curtain. I would like to underline again that this is not our path. There is no sense for us in returning to the past.”

De Hoop Scheffer, meanwhile, told reporters at a press conference in London that “NATO is in full solidarity ... with the Georgian people and with the Georgian government.”

“We have an intensive partnership, an intensive dialogue, an intensive high-level political engagement with Georgia,” he added.

Georgian efforts to become part of NATO have infuriated Russia, which objects to the prospect of its old Cold War foe extending to its borders.

The brief Georgia-Russia war last month overshadowed the talks, which were originally intended to focus on the alliance’s continuing transformation to a more flexible regional security bloc, and the conflict has chilled Russia’s relations with the West to a degree not seen since the Cold War.

Those relations are likely to be further damaged with the U.S.-Czech status of forces agreement, which provides the legal basis for the US presence there, and marks the last piece of a years long negotiation over the radar, part of a U.S. missile defense system that has aroused intense Russian opposition.

Earlier on Friday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said, after talks with visiting Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze, Britain was in “full support of the territorial integrity of Georgia and we will be giving financial and economic support to Georgia, and urging other countries to do so.”

“We will be working with our European partners to ensure that there is sufficient support for the reconstruction of Georgia,” he added.

Both Scheffer and Gates spoke cautiously of how to respond to Russia following the conflict last month.

Scheffer said he foresaw “no U-turn in NATO policy” despite uncertainty about Russian intentions and said the Georgia conflict would not be resolved “if we seek to punish Russia.”

Gates, meanwhile, urged NATO to avoid provocation in its response to Russia, adding he thought concern among members on the issue “has more to do with pressure and intimidation than it does any prospect of real military action.”

Brown meanwhile told Sky News television that supporting Georgian and Ukrainian membership to NATO was “the right thing to do.”

Wire reports

6 Comments

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  SuperLib at 08:58 AM JST - 20th September

  Actually I thought it was pretty much agreed that Russia provoked the conflict, although I still maintain Georgia was dumb to start firing. Russia had built up troops, shot down Georgian drones, did just about everything to get a response from Georgia. And it worked.

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  taniwha at 09:55 AM JST - 20th September

  Well that is one side to the story. Then you need to ask how did Georgia get its drones, and why would it need to have that kind of sophisticated weaponry in the first place?

  Another fair question you might ask is why Georgia dispatched its army into a city and start firing at civilian apartment buildings. It wasn't as though the targets were military to begin with they were not. Unfortunately for the spin on the story you favor that fact that Georgia did as you say fire first, and on civilian targets simply adds weight to the Russian excuse that they simply went in to protect their own citizens from being murdered by Georgian government forces.

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  SuperLib at 02:06 PM JST - 20th September

  Then you need to ask how did Georgia get its drones, and why would it need to have that kind of sophisticated weaponry in the first place?

  Well I'm assuming they bought the drones, and I'm also assuming they bought them because they felt they needed them to help with national security.

  Did you questions have a point?

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  taniwha at 06:57 PM JST - 20th September

  Sure did Lib.

  It was to focus on the issue of drones in Georgia, which you yourself bought up even as you lay the cause of the conflict at the feet of Russia.

  The Caucasus crises story is a little broader than you would have it told.

  The grounds for the declaration of independence claimed by anti-Georgian separatists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia are indistinguishable from those behind Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia last February. And let’s not forget that it was the Bush administration that was the prime mover behind Kosovo.

  Moreover, the US encouraged and financed the forces that sought to effect the secession of Chechnya from Russia in the 1990s.

  It has become quite clear that the US was clearly involved in the Georgian assault on South Ossetia, and really you must ask what were its intentions. Do you really believe that US policy makers thought Russia would take no action in response to such an immense provocation. So why, would they support a move that would bring Russia into a direct conflict with one of Washington’s principal allies in the Caucasus? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact this region happens to constitute a bridgehead between the resource rich Caspian Basin and Western Europe and houses critical oil and gas pipelines.

  Perhaps a major escalation of tensions between Russia and the West was the desired outcome, a restarting if the Cold War. Russia remains an obstacle to the geo-strategic aim of the US to secure hegemony over Eurasia. That’s the short of it. In any event, why not deal with all of the facts instead of just the convenient ones that suit one political position? Has anyone mentioned missiles in Poland yet? A deal only just completed, isn’t it? Isn’t Poland pretty close to Russia?

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  SuperLib at 01:44 PM JST - 21st September

  Sorry taniwha I only glanced at your response. I'm not really interested in a prolonged debate with someone such as yourself.

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  taniwha at 03:18 PM JST - 21st September

  Why do you apologise?

  Its always kinda nice to receive an invitation to reply to, and an poster to interact with, but I don't regard either as necessary before posting here.

  We are nothing more than bits of the threads for others to read.

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