NATO officially launched it’s military exercises today in Georgia, despite repeated and fierce opposition from Russia and amid a controversial and confusing failed “assasination plot against Georgia’s leader Mikhail Saakashvili“.
From AFP:
NATO on Wednesday began controversial military exercises in Georgia a day after the ex-Soviet republic said it had put down a military rebellion that had Russia’s backing.
The month-long exercises involve at least 1,100 soldiers from more than a dozen NATO and non-NATO states in command and field exercises.
Georgia has lauded the exercises as a gesture of solidarity nine months after its brief war with Russia last summer, but Moscow has reacted angrily, with President Dmitry Medvedev calling them “an overt provocation.”
In a sign of increasing NATO-Russia tension, Russia on Wednesday expelled two Canadian diplomats working at NATO’s representative office in Moscow after the alliance expelled two Russian envoys in a spy row, the Russian authorities and Canada’s embassy said.
A Georgian defence ministry spokesman responsible for the NATO exercises, Colonel Giorgi Kakiashvili, said they were going ahead as planned.
“Everything is going ahead according to the schedule. Most of the participants have already arrived,” he told AFP.
He said participants would gather today for planning meetings and that full-scale command exercises would begin on Monday.
From BBC:
More than 1,000 soldiers will take part in the Nato exercises over a period of more than three weeks.
They are taking place close to areas where Russian troops are stationed in Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia.
Georgia’s defence ministry said Nato would spend the next few days setting up a staff headquarters at the Vaziani base outside the capital Tbilisi.
The first exercise, running until 19 May, is described as a “command post” exercise focusing on co-ordinating Nato procedures in a crisis-response situation.Then a second, larger, exercise, based on peacekeeping training, will run till 3 June.
Nato has denied the exercises are aimed at Russia or the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
“This issue has been totally misused, I think, by all parties. Georgia is not the object of this exercise, Georgia is the host of this exercise like Armenia was the year before,” Nato spokesman James Appathurai told BBC News.
“The Russians can portray it the way they want… They’re not the only ones to misuse this exercise for political purposes.
“I can tell you the secretary-general has spoken to the leadership in Georgia to express his concern that they also are misusing this exercise for political purposes.”
Armenia, Kazakhstan, Serbia and Moldova – Russian allies which had been invited by Nato to participate in the Georgian manoeuvres – have all pulled out.
From Bloomberg:
Nineteen countries, including non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization members, were originally scheduled to take part in the Cooperative Longbow – Cooperative Lancer 09 exercises at Georgia’s Vaziani military base. Armenia, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Serbia won’t be sending troops to participate in the war games, which will last until June 1, Nardaia said.
Can you imagine Russia engaging in “war games” in North Korea, just on the border with South Korea (close to the US military base)? Will Russia seriously tolerate this and lose face without reacting with more than just words? Medvedev’s words were clear these military exercises are “an overt provaction”…
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