- President Vladimir Putin used the backdrop of US threats
against Iraq to warn the UN Security Council that Russia may soon launch
its own anti-terror war in Georgia aimed at hunting down Chechen guerrillas.
-
- Putin sent a message to the council's four other permanent
members as well as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan saying that Russia would
take "adequate measures" if Georgia failed to win back control
of its lawless Pankisi gorge.
-
- Chechens have used the neighboring northern Georgian
territory as a rear base throughout their three-year war with Russian troops.
Moscow's uneasy relations with Georgia have repeatedly threatened to boil
over as a result.
-
- "If Georgia fails to take concrete steps to destroy
the terrorists, and they continue to attack us from its territory, then
Russia, in strict compliance with international law, will take adequate
measures for averting the terrorist threat," Putin said in a message
distributed by the Kremlin.
-
- "At the same time, we are not talking about actions
aimed at undermining (Georgian) sovereignty or territorial integrity, or
changing its political regime," the Kremlin quoted Putin's message
as saying.
-
- The Chechens have "moved their bases to Georgia,
where -- with the Georgian authorities' blessing -- they feel very free
and comfortable," it said.
-
- Putin's message was delivered on the same day that US
President George W. Bush was due to make a key address before the United
Nations outlining Washington's plans to unseat Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's
regime.
-
- The Russian media has widely speculated that Moscow and
Washington have struck a quid pro quo agreement in which Putin would turn
a blind eye to a US operation in Iraq -- which is seen as a Russian ally
-- if Bush did the same over Georgia.
-
- "Putin trades Saddam Hussein for Georgia,"
the popular Internet newspaper Strana.ru trumpeted in a banner headline.
-
- "Russia is offering the US a deal: Iraq over Georgia,"
the Kommersant business daily agreed.
-
- Several close observers of US-Russian relations said
Putin and Bush discussed both Iraq and Georgia during a September 5 telephone
conversation.
-
- John Evans, director of the Russian office in the US
State Department, later reportedly told a conference in Berlin that Washington
was "very satisfied" with the outcome of those talks.
-
- "Russia received a carte blanche over Georgia"
in that discussion, said Andrei Piontkovsky, director of Moscow's Center
for Strategic Studies, who attended the Berlin conference.
-
- Indeed, Russian officials were beating the war drum Thursday,
with Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov hinting that strikes were imminent.
-
- "We should no longer accept the threat to our national
security that is coming from Georgia ... and we must be eliminating the
bandits both on Russian territory as well as those who are station in Georgia,"
Gryzlov told reporters.
-
- Georgia, which has enlisted the United States as a key
ally and is mulling an application for NATO membership, appeared slightly
shell-shocked by Russia's bravado.
-
- Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze described Russia's
threat as "hasty" and offered to discuss the issue by telephone
with Putin.
-
- But top Kremlin spokesman Alexei Gromov said Thursday
that Putin had no immediate plans to speak with Shevardnadze.
-
- A top Georgian official said he was "surprised by
Putin's tone."
-
- "There is not a single rebel left in Pankisi or
anywhere else in Georgia," Tedo Dzhaparidze, the Georgia security
council secretary, told AFP in Tbilisi.
-
- Meanwhile military analysts here speculate Russia will
have only limited success in Pankisi since the operation would be launched
when the mountainous terrain is already covered by snow, making the region
all but impenetrable by foot.
-
- "Intervention would be futile unless Georgia offers
help by providing transportation and clearing its roads," said independent
military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer.
-
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