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September 09, 2008Burn Me Once, Shame on You...
This should be good news:
At a televised news briefing with Medvedev, Sarkozy said Russian forces would withdraw from five checkpoints between the Black Sea port of Poti and the western city of Senaki within a week, and from all positions in other undisputed parts of Georgia within a month.
Except that, back on August 12, the two sides had already agreed to just that:
By 2 a.m. on Wednesday, Mr. Medvedev and his Georgian counterpart, Mikheil Saakashvili, had agreed on a plan that would withdraw troops to the positions they had occupied before the fighting broke out.
US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice flew to Tblisi to secure Georgia's signature to the original peace deal; afterward, Russian forces just held their positions anyway.
Let's hope the second agreement's the charm and the rest of Russia's troops actually pull out. If not, then either the Russians have a very strange and troubling opinion of the value of their own signature on something, or Medvedev is not only powerless to rein in the army but also unaware of or unconcerned with how limited his writ actually is. Neither of which would be good for anybody.
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