Georgia rebels can block future observers: Russia

Tue Sep 16, 2008 12:38pm EDT

(Adds OSCE comment)

By Conor Sweeney

MOSCOW, Sept 16 (Reuters) - International ceasefire monitors will have to seek permission from Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia region if they are to operate there in the long term, Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

Under a ceasefire deal that ended last month's war between Russia and Georgia, United Nations observers are to operate inside Abkhazia -- another separatist Georgian region -- and monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) inside South Ossetia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov this week persuaded reluctant leaders from South Ossetia and Abkhazia to honour this arrangement, Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said.

But he said in the longer term South Ossetia could veto the OSCE presence inside its borders. He did not say if that also applied to the U.N monitors inside Abkhazia.

Russia has recognised both regions as independent states.

"It (South Ossetia) is an independent state and all those problems linked to the activities of this (OSCE) mission have to be resolved with the leadership of that state," Nesterenko said.

"In the future, the South Ossetian leadership would like to discuss possible modalities of the activities of this group, possibly about its make-up and so on.

"They are thinking about it. That is their right and prerogative because we are talking about the territory of their republic," he told Reuters.

SECURITY MECHANISM

The OSCE and U.N. observer missions inside the two breakaway regions -- which have been operating autonomously for over a decade -- are seen by Western states as crucial elements in a security mechanism for Georgia after last month's war.

A Sept. 8 ceasefire deal brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy stated that the U.N. and OSCE missions would continue their activities in the same numbers and format as before the conflict.

A larger international force of ceasefire monitors, including a 200-strong European Union contingent, will be deployed in Georgia, outside South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The dispute about their long-term future stems from a fundamental difference over the status of the two regions, which all states apart from Russia and Nicaragua say are part of Georgia.

Western diplomats and humanitarian agencies say their plans are being complicated by Russia's insistence that they must deal directly with the two enclaves.

Lavrov this week said the OSCE could not make decisions on South Ossetia and Abkhazia without consulting their leaders.

The Vienna-based OSCE hopes to expand its monitoring presence in Georgia and negotiations are taking place between envoys from its 56 members states, including Russia, said its spokesman Martin Nesirky.

"On Aug. 26 the OSCE's chairman-in-office, the Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, condemned the decision of Russia to recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia and said it violates the organisation's fundamental principles," he said. (Reporting by Conor Sweeney; Editing by Robert Hart and Caroline Drees)



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