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| Caucasus |
| Russers mull response to U.S. rebuke... |
| 2002-08-26 |
| Russia weighed its response on Sunday to a sharp U.S. rebuke for alleged indiscriminate bombing in northern Georgia, a move Washington said could fuel tensions in the turbulent Caucasus region. Georgia said one man was killed and seven people wounded in Friday's attack, which White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer said had been verified by monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. "The United States regrets this loss of life and deplores the violation of Georgia's sovereignty," Fleischer said on Saturday. Doesn't sound that "severe" to me, but I'm no diplomat, so I have a tin ear for these things... However, he quickly stressed his statement did not signal any deterioration in U.S.-Russian relations. Wouldn't expect it to... Such official public upbraidings have become comparatively rare as Russian-U.S. ties blossomed following Moscow's strong support for Washington's war on terrorism. The Russian military again denied on Sunday its aircraft had bombed the zone. Defense Ministry chief spokesman Colonel Nikolai Deryabin told Interfax news agency that reports to the contrary "can only cause surprise." Sounds like it mighta been a mistake on their part. Or the target was one that really needed bombed, so they intentionally applied a "generous" reading of the map. A duty spokesman told Reuters that senior officials at the Foreign Ministry was considering its response to the criticism. My advice would be to ignore it and to continue operations against the Bad Guys in Chechnya. It's in the same category as when we holler at Israel when they goof up... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |