Georgia pulls troops out of South Ossetia but fighting spreads

GEORGIA WITHDREW its forces from rebel South Ossetia yesterday and called on Russia to enter peace talks, despite Moscow-backed separatists opening a second front of fighting in Abkhazia, another renegade region.

"We proclaim ceasefire. We are willing to sign the document on non-use of force and non-resumption of hostilities," said Georgia's president Mikheil Saakashvili, referring to conditions that Russia had set for its military to end its campaign.

There was no immediate response from Moscow, and the US envoy to the United Nations accused Russia of trying to prolong the fighting and oust Mr Saakashvili, whose bid to take Georgia into Nato has angered the Kremlin.

Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said Russia was "impeding the withdrawal of Georgian forces from South Ossetia . . . to continue the conflict and prevent the Georgians from taking concrete steps to de-escalate the situation."

He condemned Russia for its "targeting of civilians and campaign of terror" and claimed that Russia's foreign minister had told US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice that Mr Saakashvili "must go" before a peace deal could be reached.

In the sharpest exchange between Moscow and Washington over the crisis, Russia's UN envoy, Vitaly Churkin, called such "propaganda . . . unacceptable, especially from the lips of a representative of a country whose action we are aware of in Iraq, Afghanistan and Serbia".

As Russian tanks and troops drove Georgian forces out of South Ossetia yesterday, officials accused Russian jets of continuing to strike targets around Georgia, including an area near a major pipeline taking oil to Europe, and several airbases, including one adjacent to Tbilisi's international airport - where a bomb landed without doing major damage.

Moscow sent thousands of soldiers, hundreds of armoured vehicles and dozens of attack aircraft into South Ossetia on Friday morning after a surge in fighting between Georgian forces and local proRussian separatists, who escaped Tbilisi's rule in a 1991-1992 war and want to unite with their ethnic kin in Kremlin-controlled North Ossetia.

Mr Saakashvili claimed to have launched an all-out assault on the region in response to the Russian "invasion", while prime minister Vladimir Putin, taking clear charge of the issue in Moscow, said his forces were rushing to prevent "genocide" against South Ossetians.

Reports trickling out of South Ossetia suggest much of the main town of Tskhinvali has been destroyed by Georgian shelling and subsequent fighting, while several tower-blocks in the nearby town of Gori, in Georgia proper, were gutted by Russian bombs.

Amid a fierce propaganda war, casualty figures have differed wildly, with Moscow and South Ossetian officials claiming that some 2,000 people have been killed, and their Georgian counterparts putting the figure at a few dozen.

Tens of thousands of people are believed to have been displaced by the fighting, which spread yesterday to Abkhazia, a Black Sea region which has run its own affairs - with Russian support - since defeating Georgian forces in a 1992-1993 war.

The Department of Foreign Affairs has been in contact with more than 20 Irish people who are resident in Georgia since the fighting broke out. A spokeswoman said last night that none of them had been caught up in the fighting.

Most Irish residents are planning to leave the region and the department said it was providing consular assistance via its embassy in Sofia.