US ships bring Georgia aid, avoid Russian-held port
By Niko Mchedlishvili
BATUMI, Georgia, Aug 27 (Reuters) - A U.S. Coast Guard ship carrying aid for victims of Georgia's brief war with Russia arrived on the country's Black Sea coast on Wednesday, but backed down from docking in a Russian-patrolled port.
The cutter Dallas had been due in Poti, where Russian troops are manning checkpoints since pushing into Georgia proper this month after a war over the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Instead, it docked 80 km (50 miles) south in Batumi.
The U.S. embassy in Tbilisi originally said the Dallas would be joined in Poti by a U.S. warship, the USS McFaul, which docked in Batumi on Sunday. But the embassy said late on Tuesday that the plan had changed. It did not say why.
"This decision was taken at the highest level of the Pentagon," a U.S. embassy spokeswoman told Reuters.
Russia has remained defiant in the face of a barrage of international criticism over its continued military presence inside Georgia, which Western countries say violates a ceasefire agreement to end the conflict.
The McFaul had left Batumi after unloading its aid supplies, and the U.S. embassy said it was still in the Black Sea.
A third vessel, the Navy command ship USS Mount Whitney, has also been loaded with aid supplies and has left its home port in Italy, U.S. Navy Lt. Commander Tamsen Reese.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has accused Washington of delivering weapons to Georgia by sea, but made clear Russian ships deployed near the Georgian coast would not obstruct the operation.
"What the Americans call humanitarian cargoes -- of course, they are bringing in weapons," he told the BBC in an interview on Tuesday, adding: "We're not trying to prevent it."
A White House spokesman rejected Medvedev's accusations of U.S. ships bringing in weapons as "ridiculous".
Russia has said it will continue to patrol Poti, a small oil shipment and dry grain port, despite the town lying outside a "buffer zone" where Russia plans to post peacekeepers indefinitely.
Russia rolled tanks and troops over its southern border this month to repel an assault by Georgian forces to retake South Ossetia from pro-Moscow separatists.
Georgian forces retreated, and Moscow on Tuesday said it had decided to recognise South Ossetia and Georgia's other breakaway region, Abkhazia, as independent states. (Writing by Matt Robinson; editing by Robert Hart)
BATUMI, Georgia, Aug 27 (Reuters) - A U.S. Coast Guard ship carrying aid for victims of Georgia's brief war with Russia arrived on the country's Black Sea coast on Wednesday, but backed down from docking in a Russian-patrolled port.
The cutter Dallas had been due in Poti, where Russian troops are manning checkpoints since pushing into Georgia proper this month after a war over the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Instead, it docked 80 km (50 miles) south in Batumi.
The U.S. embassy in Tbilisi originally said the Dallas would be joined in Poti by a U.S. warship, the USS McFaul, which docked in Batumi on Sunday. But the embassy said late on Tuesday that the plan had changed. It did not say why.
"This decision was taken at the highest level of the Pentagon," a U.S. embassy spokeswoman told Reuters.
Russia has remained defiant in the face of a barrage of international criticism over its continued military presence inside Georgia, which Western countries say violates a ceasefire agreement to end the conflict.
The McFaul had left Batumi after unloading its aid supplies, and the U.S. embassy said it was still in the Black Sea.
A third vessel, the Navy command ship USS Mount Whitney, has also been loaded with aid supplies and has left its home port in Italy, U.S. Navy Lt. Commander Tamsen Reese.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has accused Washington of delivering weapons to Georgia by sea, but made clear Russian ships deployed near the Georgian coast would not obstruct the operation.
"What the Americans call humanitarian cargoes -- of course, they are bringing in weapons," he told the BBC in an interview on Tuesday, adding: "We're not trying to prevent it."
A White House spokesman rejected Medvedev's accusations of U.S. ships bringing in weapons as "ridiculous".
Russia has said it will continue to patrol Poti, a small oil shipment and dry grain port, despite the town lying outside a "buffer zone" where Russia plans to post peacekeepers indefinitely.
Russia rolled tanks and troops over its southern border this month to repel an assault by Georgian forces to retake South Ossetia from pro-Moscow separatists.
Georgian forces retreated, and Moscow on Tuesday said it had decided to recognise South Ossetia and Georgia's other breakaway region, Abkhazia, as independent states. (Writing by Matt Robinson; editing by Robert Hart)
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