Cheney will head diplomatic mission to Georgia war zone

Cheney will head diplomatic mission

to Georgia war zone

By BEN FELLER

President Bush is dispatching Vice President Dick Cheney to Georgia, setting up a high-ranking diplomatic mission to an ally reeling from war.

The White House announced today that Cheney will head abroad on Sept. 2 for stops in three former Soviet Republics — Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine — plus Italy.

“The president felt it was important to have the vice president consult with allies in the region on our common security interests,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said today.

The vice president’s office described Cheney’s mission in similarly broad terms, and called it a chance to reiterate the U.S. commitment to its allies.

Indeed, Cheney’s presence in the war zone is a clear sign to Russia of the U.S. resolve behind Georgia after the small country was pummeled by a Russian military response.

Cheney’s office has used tough rhetoric against the former Cold War foe, saying that “Russian aggression must not go unanswered.” The Pentagon has ruled out a military response.

Cheney’s trip was in the works before the war erupted in Georgia on Aug. 7, but clearly takes on heightened significance as a result of it.

Cheney will hold talks in Georgia with President Mikhail Saakashvili, and will meet with the respective presidents of the other countries he is visiting.

The news comes as Russia’s parliament voted unanimously today to urge the country’s president to recognize the independence of Georgia’s two breakaway regions, a move likely to stoke further tensions between Moscow and the small Caucasus nation’s Western allies.

The war erupted Aug. 7 as Georgia launched a massive artillery barrage targeting the separatist province of South Ossetia. Russian forces repelled the offensive and attacked deep into Georgia, taking crucial positions across the small former Soviet republic.

Russia pulled the bulk of its troops and tanks out Friday under a cease-fire brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, but built up its forces in and around South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another separatist region. It also left military posts inside Georgia proper.

Bush has been adamant that South Ossetia and Abkhazia are part of Georgia.

Russia’s attack and its actions after the cease-fire have caused serious strains in relations with the West, and heightened fears in the young Eastern European democracies. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a quick trip to Georgia earlier this month to help seal the cease-fire agreement.

Cheney’s trip was originally driven by his plans to attend the Ambrosetti forum in Italy, an annual meeting of world leaders. The Georgia and Azerbaijan stops have been planned for some time. The visit to Ukraine was recently added.

Ukraine, like Georgia, has angered Moscow by seeking closer ties with the West and membership in the NATO military alliance. While siding with Georgia, Ukrainian officials have acknowledged that Moscow’s quick military victory exposed their nation’s own vulnerability.

Russian threat to Nato supply route in Afghanistan

Russian threat to Nato supply route

in Afghanistan

Nato imports about 70 per cent of its food, fuel, water and equipment from Pakistan via the Khyber Pass

Jeremy Page in Kabul

Russia played a trump card in its strategic poker game with the West yesterday by threatening to suspend an agreement allowing Nato to take supplies and equipment to Afghanistan through Russia and Central Asia.

The agreement was struck at a Nato summit in April to provide an alternative supply route to the road between the Afghan capital and the Pakistani border, which has come under attack from militants on both sides of the frontier this year.

Zamir Kabulov, the Russian Ambassador to Afghanistan, told The Times in an interview that he believed the deal was no longer valid because Russia suspended military cooperation with Nato last week over its support for Georgia.

Asked if the move by Russia invalidated the agreement, he said: “Of course. Why not? If there is a suspension of military cooperation, this is military cooperation.”

Mr Kabulov also suggested that the stand-off over Georgia could lead Russia to review agreements allowing Nato members to use Russian airspace and to maintain bases in the former Soviet Central Asian states of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

“No one with common sense can expect to cooperate with Russia in one part of the world while acting against it in another,” he said.

His remarks are likely to alarm Nato commanders because the Taleban have been targeting the supply routes of the alliance this year, mimicking tactics used against the British in 1841 and the Soviet Union two decades ago. Nato imports about 70 per cent of its food, fuel, water and equipment from Pakistan via the Khyber Pass, and flies in much of the rest through Russian airspace via bases in Central Asia. It has not started using the “northern corridor” because the deal – covering nonmilitary supplies and nonlethal military equipment – has yet to be cleared with the Central Asian states involved.

The need for an alternative route was highlighted by recent attacks on Nato supply convoys, including one that destroyed 36 fuel tankers in a northwestern Pakistani border town in March. Four US helicopter engines worth $13 million (£7 million) went missing on the way from Kabul to Pakistan in April. Last week militants killed ten French soldiers on the same route 30 miles from Kabul.

Western officials fear that such attacks could increase in the power vacuum in Pakistan created by the resignation of Pervez Musharraf as President last week and the collapse of the coalition Government yesterday.

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s President-turned-Prime-Minister, was the first foreign leader to telephone President Bush after the attacks on September 11, 2001, and has supported the War on Terror ever since. The Kremlin has fears about the spread of Islamic extremism into Central Asia and Muslim regions of Russia, especially Chechnya, where it fought two wars with Muslim rebels in the 1990s.

However, many Russian officials have bitter memories of the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan and strong reservations about the US presence in Central Asia, which they see as their strategic backyard.

“It’s not in Russia’s interests for Nato to be defeated and leave behind all these problems,” Mr Kabulov, who worked at the Soviet Embassy in Kabul from 1983 to 1987, said. “We’d prefer Nato to complete its job and then leave this unnatural geography.

“But at the same time, we’ll be the last ones to moan about Nato’s departure.”

A Nato spokesman declined to respond to Mr Kabulov’s comments and said that Russia had not informed the alliance officially of any decision to annul the northern corridor agreement.