RUSSIA/GEORGIA: President Saakashvili says Georgia not looking for confrontation with Russia while interior ministry releases taped confessions by some Georgian nationals arrested on charges of spying for Russia

The Georgian interior ministry on Friday (September 29, 2006) released taped confessions by some of the Georgian nationals arrested on charges of spying for Russia and collaborating with four Russian army officers detained in Tbilisi on Wednesday (September 27). Russia began pulling out some of its diplomats and their families from Georgia on Friday as the small ex-Soviet state pressed spying charges against the Russian army officers. NATO, which pro-Western Georgia wants to join to the dismay of Russia, urged both sides to show restraint but said it had no clear role to play in helping defuse the row. The first group from several hundred people to be evacuated from the Southern Caucasus country left on Friday on two Ilyushin cargo planes. Russian ambassador Vyacheslav Kovalenko, recalled by Moscow, was due to leave on one of the planes. A Tbilisi court formally charged four Russian army officers, whose arrest on accusations of spying for the GRU military intelligence sparked the crisis, and ordered them kept under arrest for at least two months. The hearings were kept behind closed doors and it was not clear whether the officers pleaded guilty. One of them shouted "this is a provocation" as he was led into the court building. Under Georgian law, espionage is punishable by prison terms of up to 10 years. Relations with old Soviet master Russia have worsened dramatically since pro-Western President Mikhail Saakashvili came to power in the 2003 "Rose Revolution". Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said on Friday (September 29) he was not seeking a confrontation with Russia. Saakashvili spoke to reporters during a visit to an open cast copper mine at Bolnisi 90km south of Tbilisi. "We are acting based on our laws and on international accepted practice. Georgia has no intention whatsoever to cause escalation," said Saakashvili. Saakashvili's pursuit of NATO membership particularly irks Russia. He himself has publicly attacked Moscow, saying it supports separatists who control two regions of his country in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Police in Tbilisi continued to surround Russian army headquarters, which controls two Russian bases, relics from Soviet times that are to be withdrawn in 2008. A fifth Russian officer sought by Georgia in connection with the alleged spy ring remained inside the grey four-storey glass-and-concrete soviet era building that has been the focus of the crisis. Angered by Tbilisi's arrest of four Russian army officers on alleged spying charges supporters of one of Russia's nationalist parties staged a protest outside the Georgian embassy in Moscow on Friday. Police prevented the protesters from the Liberal and Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) from reaching the Georgian embassy building. One LDPR activist called on the Russian authorities to "encourage" Georgians living in Russia to leave the county. The crisis in Georgia overshadowed a NATO-Russia meeting in the Slovenian coastal resort of Portoroz. NATO agreed on Sept. 18 to launch talks on closer ties with Georgia leading possibly to membership. But its Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said after the Protoroz talks that the alliance would not get involved in the row. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Field also called on both sides to work out a peaceful solution. Saakashvili's press service said he spoke by phone with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday, but gave no details. Russian ministers and media have reacted angrily to what they have described as deliberate provocation from Saakashvili. Apart from recalling its ambassador, Moscow has advised Russian nationals against travel to Georgia, a small mountainous republic of 5 million people. President Vladimir Putin, away in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, has so far not commented publicly on the crisis. Georgia depends on Russia for gas supplies, giving Moscow another potential lever over its poorer neighbour. The Russian electricity monopoly UES controls the Georgian power grid and two hydro-electric plants. An estimated one million Georgians work in Russia and send money home, keeping the country in the sway of its neighbour.

ITN Source | September 30, 2006

Tags:. .confessions. .sought. .pleaded. .grey. .depends