International

Russian MPs back South Ossetia, Abkhazia

MOSCOW: Russia’s Parliament voted on Monday to support the independence of Georgia’s two breakaway regions, which sparked a short but fierce military conflict earlier this month.

Both Houses of the Russian legislature, the Federation Council and State Duma, unanimously backed resolutions calling on President Dmitry Medvedev to recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states. “Following Georgia’s aggression against South Ossetia, neither Ossetia nor Abkhazia will be able to live in a single state with those who burnt their women and children alive, crushed them with tanks and shot point-blank at them,” said Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov at an emergency session of the Upper House.

The resolutions are not binding but Mr. Medvedev is on record as saying Russia would respect the will of the people of Abkhazia and South Ossetia even as the West supported Georgia’s territorial integrity. Both South Ossetia and Abkhazia asked Moscow on Friday to recognise their independence. In a growing rift with the West, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Monday Russia would walk out of some obligations it had undertaken to join the WTO.

“The commitments we assumed years ago have placed additional burden on our economy, our producers,” said Mr. Putin at a Cabinet meeting on Monday. “Meanwhile, we do not see any benefits from joining the WTO,” he added. The U.S. has threatened to block Russia’s accession to the WTO for its intervention to repulse Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia.

Despite a heavy defeat Georgia suffered at the hands of the Russian Army, its President Mikheil Saakashvili has again vowed to return the breakaway territories in its fold. In an interview to the International Herald Tribune on Monday, he said Georgia would rebuild its military potential with U.S. help. and reassert full control over South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

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