Saakashvili Sees No Threat of Russia’s ‘New Military Adventure’
President Saakashvili said that despite large-scale military build-up of the Russian forces both in Georgia’s breakaway regions and on Georgia’s borders, he did not think that Russia would “renew any large-scale military adventure.”
“That’s true that now the concentration of the Russian [forces] within [referring to breakaway regions] and outside Georgia exceeds the scales, which were during last August,” Saakashvili told a small group of television reporters after meeting with doctors in one of Tbilisi’s outpatient centers.
“But I still think that in fact now there is no situation for Russia to renew any large-scale military adventure. Because, firstly, all this was aimed at possible internal unrests [in Georgia] and as the recent developments have clearly shown that no matter how much money they will spent and what they will do, Georgia is a stable country and it is impossible to trigger serious unrests here. And on the other hand, we have much more international support today than we had last August,” Saakashvili added.
“Russians keep saying: we want good relations with Georgia, but only in case if the government there is replaced,” he continued. “But when they say Georgia, they mean not Georgia, as the rest of the world means it – from Psou [in breakaway Abkhazia] and the Roki Tunnel [in breakaway South Ossetia], but the Russians mean only Kartli, Kakheti and Imereti [regions of Georgia]; just this is Georgia for Russia today.”
“So in order to prepare ground for a real dialogue with Russia, our task is to strengthen our international positions; to integrate into Euro-Atlantic structures and we have a unique chance for that now; to strengthen our economy in order to convince Russia that it is impossible to trigger unrests in Georgia whether from within or from outside and all these will be much firmer ground for holding correct dialogue in order to overcome misfortune which exists in our bilateral relations and which is reflected in occupation of our territory.”
“I believe, that now our major threat is not further occupation of Georgia’s other territories – which some people might be dreaming about – but the issue of complete de-occupation of Georgia should be put on the agenda and we all are preparing necessary conditions for that.
In an interview with Newsweek published on April 11, President Saakashvili said that Russia had 5,000 troops in each of the Georgia’s breakaway region.
He also said that the Russian authorities would “probably be happy to see me leave the post.” Although saying that he did not think that Russia’s PM and President, Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, respectively, “would appreciate” an idea of again attacking Georgia, Saakashvili also added: “I could suppose that some of the military authorities in Russia think of attacking Georgia today, to say later that it was me who invaded Russia to distract the attention of my opposition.”
This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)
