Military

DATE=8/5/04

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=CQ POWELL/GEORGIA/RUSSIA (L-ONLY)

NUMBER=2-318064

BYLINE=DAVID GOLLUST

DATELINE=STATE DEPARTMENT

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

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HEADLINE: Powell Expects Diplomatic Resolution to Troubles in Georgia

INTRO: Secretary of State Colin Powell says the United States is using its good offices with both Georgia and Russia to try to ease tensions in two breakaway regions of Georgia. Mr. Powell held talks on the issue late Thursday with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department.

TEXT: Mr. Saakashvili's visit to the United States coincided with another flare-up in tensions in the separatist Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions of Georgia, where Russia continues to wield heavy influence more than a decade after Georgia's independence.

Russian and Georgian leaders have exchanged angry statements after an incident in South Ossetia in which a convoy carrying a Russian legislator was said to have been attacked, and a threat by Georgia to fire on vessels, including those ferrying Russian passengers, in Black Sea coastal waters off Abkhazia.

The United States has been interceding with both the Moscow and Tbilisi governments since a similar eruption of tensions last November. In a talk with reporters after his meeting with Mr. Saakashvili, Secretary Powell said the situation is tense but not "on the verge of a crisis" and said he thinks it is the kind of problem that can be resolved diplomatically:

///Powell actuality///

"What we are anxious to do is calm the situation down, remove tensions and the propensity for provocation, and get back to dialogue as the president said. And we'll use our good offices as we have rather repeatedly and continuously since last November. You'll recall that weekend in November when this all began. And we've tried to be helpful every step in the way and we'll continue to be so."

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For his part, Mr. Saakashvili said he is determined to calm things down and "demilitarize" the situation, despite what he said had been "outrageous" statements by Russian politicians blaming Georgia for the trouble and accusing it of infringing on Russian sovereignty:

///Saakashvili actuality///

"We don't want to be provoked. We are making steady progress. We are moving forward. Georgia has great prospects in terms of attracting investments, in terms of getting reforms through in this period. And certainly the last thing we want is some kind of confrontation. That's exactly something they'd like to impose upon us because they think that now we are so vulnerable."

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The United States has strongly supported Mr. Saakashvili, an American-educated lawyer elected president in January on a reform platform after leading the so-called "Rose Revolution" that toppled longtime Georgian leader Eduard Shavardnadze last year.

U.S. officials have also stressed support for Georgia's territorial integrity. Both Abkhazia and South Ossettia, which border Russia, have close ethnic and economic ties to that country and have been semi-independent since separatist conflicts in the early 1990s. (Signed)

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