Wall Street Journal - 08.06.2004

Wall Street Journal


Georgia Sets Path of Confrontation 

New President Saakashvili Angers Russia, Courts U.S. With Caucasus Ambitions 

By HUGH POPE and GUY CHAZAN 
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Georgia's new leader has stepped up efforts to win back two breakaway regions supported by Russia -- a high-risk strategy that signals dangerous confrontations ahead in a country vital for a new export pipeline from the oil-rich Caspian Sea.

Gunfights and troop movements in recent weeks have raised tensions between Moscow and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who, since being elected in January, has courted Washington as an offset to Russian influence in the Caucasus region.

The two disputed regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, broke away from Georgia in wars that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Mr. Saakashvili has made it his top priority to reunite the country. In May he won back another region, Ajaria, with hardly a shot fired. But diplomats and Russian analysts say that Moscow has no intention of surrendering its position in the other two, which straddle Russia's border with Georgia.

"The latest incidents could really sour Russian-Georgian relations....He is provoking Russia into adopting an extremely tough position," said Sergei Karaganov, head of Russia's Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. "The situation could spin out of control at any time."

Following calls for calm from both Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, Mr. Saakashvili withdrew thousands of Georgian troops sent to the border in mid-July. The Georgian president was due to discuss continuing small clashes with Mr. Powell Thursday during a visit to Washington.

While the U.S. and Russia have been cooperating to keep the peace, the current standoff indicates there is a limit to Mr. Putin's toleration of the strong U.S. relationship with Mr. Saakashvili. The U.S., challenging Russia's traditional influence in the former Soviet backyard, has promoted the strategic independence of the republics of Central Asia and has pushed for Western interests in new Caspian oil fields.

In particular, Washington and Moscow have been sparring over a $3 billion (€2.5 billion) oil pipeline being built by a BP PLC-led consortium from Azerbaijan, through Georgia to Turkey's Mediterranean coast. The pipeline, which Moscow opposes, will be the first major crude-export route from the Caspian that avoids both Russia and Iran.

A more immediate problem for the pipeline is a dispute with the Georgian government over trench depths and the security of valves as it passes through the treasured Georgian national park of Borjomi. On July 19, the government ordered work to be suspended on an 18-kilometer section of the line for two weeks. The two sides hadn't reached an agreement late Thursday.

One diplomat said there was a risk that an extended suspension ahead of difficult winter weather could delay the opening of the whole pipeline. But Tamam Bayatli, a spokeswoman for the consortium, which has already laid and filled in half of the 1,768-kilometer pipeline's length, said discussions with the Georgian government were going well. "We're on schedule. There will be no delay in the first oil in the second half of next year," Ms. Bayatli said.

Meanwhile in Moscow, Mr. Karaganov, who advises Mr. Putin's administration, said the Georgian president had wasted a chance to bury the hatchet with Russia. "It's a deliberate attempt by Saakashvili to burnish his reputation as a war president, in a situation where he's failing to resolve other social and economic problems like corruption," he said.

Russia accused Georgian forces of firing this week on a Russian delegation led by Andrei Kokoshin, the head of the Russian parliament's committee in charge of relations with other former Soviet republics. A person in the Georgian capital Tbilisi said the Russian had turned off his agreed-upon route onto a Georgian military road.

Off the Black Sea coast of Abkhazia, a Georgian patrol boat fired at a civilian vessel last Saturday. Georgian officials said the shots were fired after the boat failed to obey orders to stop for a check. Mr. Saakashvili later made an emotional speech threatening to attack any ship violating Georgia's territorial waters.

"President Saakashvili is emotional because his country is humiliated day after day. The Russians want the status quo, and he wants to change it," said Georgian analyst Alexander Rondelli, who predicted that Mr. Saakashvili would resume his slow struggle to build up Georgia's military position, mobilizing the population behind him while trying to woo the inhabitants of South Ossetia. "Luckily we have the Americans. They support us morally, politically and tell Russians not to get imperial with us. Without them Georgia would already no longer be on the map."