David Miliband UK Foreign Secretary Pledges Georgia "Strong Support from the British People Unilaterally with NATO"

by Christina 123 | August 19, 2008 at 11:09 am | 139 views | add comment | 0 recommendations

David Miliband UK Foreign Secretary Flies into Georgia for NATO Bear Taming

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President Saakasvili opened the press conference with an impassioned speech that "Russian occupation cannot be sustained."

At the live press conference ongoing tonight after meetings of foreign secretaries, David Miliband told the assembled journalists that he was present at the meeting reviewing "political security" for three reasons:

1. To let the Georgian people know that "the British people stand in solidarity" with their life and livelihood. "The rule of force cannot override the rule of law," said Mr. Miliband.

Democratic principles need to be sustained, he said, and international law upheld. "Russia has violated these principles," said the UK Foreign Secretary.

2. The meeting "marked unity in the face of Russia's refusal to have withdrawn by 7th August" and to provide "political and practical support to Georgia by way of an intensification of the relationship between NATO and Georgia, taking it forward by co-operation and mutual commitment, with NATO partners. We need to ensure that aggression does not pay," the Foreign Secretary summed up.

3. The humanitarian crisis that Georgia finds itself in. "100,000 Georgians need humanitarian assistance. We need to ensure that Georgian people know that they will get our strong support, and unilaterally. " David Miliband asserted.

The press conference continues, as I write. The draft of the Resolution will be released later and is expected to include the demand of an immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia and compliance with the ceasefire demand..

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Opposition Leader David Cameron is not the only politician who has rushed to Tblisi for a photo opportunity, as Foreign Secretary David Miliband has flown into Georgia tonight to participate in NATO meetings to help grapple with the Bear Next Door.

Do bears...?

The 26 member nations of NATO agree that the Russian invasion of Georgia in response to Tblisi's military action in South Ossetia, whatever the provocation, seriously overstepped the mark. There is disquiet that Russia has been so slow to activate the cease-fire brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, currently in the chair of the EU.

Sarkozy has promised 'serious consequences' if Russia does not meet its promise to pull out its troops. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wanted 'concrete measures' to punish Russia and insisted that the West must 'deprive Russia of any strategic victory'.

But the meeting of NATO's foreign ministers to discuss what to do about an increasingly assertive, not to say belligerent, Moscow, has served only to demonstrate the inability of the alliance to come to firm conclusions and to take decisive action.

The NATO nations remain divided between those who ache to take a swipe at Vladimir Putin and Dimitri Medvedev and the pragmatists who say that NATO, the EU and the U.S. simply have to find a way of doing business with a new-style Russia which has not, as the West had hoped, come to share their values and which has been emboldened by its new energy riches to demand a controlling influence on the countries close to its borders.