RUSSIAN BASES' DESTINY NEEDS DECIDING
RIA Novosti
MOSCOW, February 21 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hopes that the issues connected with Russian military bases in Georgia will be decided before the CIS summit in May.
"Intensive talks on this issue, just as on the other questions on our agenda that have yet to be answered, will be held during the next two months in order to try to report to the two presidents about our progress before the CIS summit," Mr. Lavrov said in an interview with the Rossia TV channel's Vesti Nedeli program (News of the Week), Sunday.
Mr. Lavrov, having stressed Russia's allegiance to the Istanbul accords, noted, however, that the accords do not contain any specific pullout dates. "They say that Russia and Georgia must discuss and agree upon the time limits and procedure for the functioning of the Russian military bases," Mr. Lavrov said.
He noted that this obligation has not been fulfilled yet, though fulfillment had been planned for 2000 because of "outside elements." Mr. Lavrov also said that during his February 18 visit, Georgia has denied that it would deploy bases of third countries on the republic's territory. He said the issue could be solved by signing a treaty both sides are tying to hammer out, but declined to go into detail.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
