US accuses Moscow of Cold War nostalgia
RUSSIA'S "nostalgia" for its powerful past had misled it into believing military action could still force the overthrow of European governments, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, has suggested.
Speaking on Sunday during a break in an emergency Security Council meeting on the crisis in Georgia, Mr Khalilzad said there was a danger Russia was over-reaching by intensifying the conflict.
"We want to make sure our Russian colleagues understand that the days of overthrowing leaders by military means in Europe, those days are gone. There is a danger its nostalgia about the past is reflecting itself in this regard as well," Mr Khalilzad tod reporters.
The US accused Russia of seeking "regime change" in Georgia.
The UN's head of peacekeeping operations, Edmund Mulet, told the emergency meeting on Sunday that the situation was deteriorating in Abkhazia, the second region seeking to separate from Georgia.
UN observers had witnessed a continuing military build-up comprising Russian and Abkhaz forces along a ceasefire line imposed following the 1992 conflict with Georgia.
Mr Mulet said the UN Observer Mission in Georgia, which oversees the ceasefire, was restricting itself to essential patrols only.
The security council was told of Russian air attacks on cities and airfields throughout Georgia.
Mr Khalilzad challenged his Russian counterpart, Vitaly Churkin, to answer whether Russia's aim was "the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Georgia".
Mr Churkin replied that it was the US that first raised the prospect of the Georgian President, Mikhail Saakashvili, stepping down, and that it may be "an interesting signal".
"Sometimes there are democratically elected, or semi-democratically elected, leaders who do things that create grave problems for their countries, so sometimes those leaders need to contemplate how useful they have become to their people," Mr Churkin said.
The ambassador said there had been heavy American involvement in Georgian affairs, which may have encouraged the military move into South Ossetia. Georgia and the US had been engaged in joint military exercises the day fighting broke out.
Action against Georgia began when its forces attacked Russian peacekeepers, 12 of whom were killed, he said.
Mr Churkin also clashed with the UN under-secretary for political affairs, Lynn Pascoe, saying his public briefing on the crisis showed a clear bias against Russia. He said the crisis was triggered by Georgia's military adventurism.
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