Russians halt Nato co-operation, refuse to leave Georgia

by Sanjay Jha | August 21, 2008 at 07:50 pm

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Russia has refused to coopearate with NATO and suspended all military dealings with them. This will further escalate tension in the highly charged atmosphere in the region. Russia had informed about their decision to NATO forces to immediately stop international military cooperation and will not move its forces completly and wants to keep couple of hundred forces.

Russia has told Nato it is halting all military co-operation, the bloc says, as the crisis over Georgia deepens.
The Russian move follows a statement by Nato that there would be no "business as usual" with Moscow unless its troops pulled out of Georgia.
However, the alliance had stopped short of freezing co-operation with Moscow.
Meanwhile, a top Russian general said that the withdrawal of the bulk of Russia's troops would be complete in about 10 days.
Gen Vladimir Boldyrev, commander of the Russian ground forces in the region, referred to the pullout of troops "sent to reinforce Russian peacekeepers" in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia.
It was not immediately clear how Gen Boldyrev's comments would fit in with a previous Russian commitment to withdraw its forces to behind a buffer zone around South Ossetia by the end of Friday.