Русская версия"They will require around 10 days to leave their current
positions," ITAR-TASS quoted General Vladimir Boldyrev, commander
of Russian ground forces in the region, as saying.
AP news agency is reporting that while some tank columns have been
rolling northwards home, some Russian forces have dug trenches and
built long-term fortifications in key areas of Georgia.
It was not immediately clear how the timetable announced by the
general would square with a previous Russian commitment to
pull back its forces to behind a buffer zone around South Ossetia
by late Friday.
Buffer zone is a serious point of contention
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The Georgian President has rejected the idea of a buffer zone
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has promised that all but
500 Russian troops would be withdrawn from Georgia by then.
Moscow said those remaining troops would be stationed in what it
termed as "zone of responsibility" as part of a peacekeeping
operation to protect South Ossetia.
This would leave Russian troops
present inside the Georgian heartland and close to its economically
vital east-west highway. Boldryev made no reference those 500
troops in his remarks.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has said he would not stand
for their presence. "There will be no buffer zones. We will never
live with any buffer zones. We'll never allow anything like this,"
he told Reuters news agency in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.
OSCE observers due Monday
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Refugee camp for Georgians from South Ossetia and Gori
Meanwhile, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE) has announced that twenty of its observers will be ready to
start monitoring a ceasefire between Georgia and Russia from
Monday.
"By Monday most of the equipment will be in place -- especially the
armored vehicles -- we will have our staff here, we will have our
operational center set up and we can start sending out monitors
into various parts in Georgia and neighboring South Ossetia," said
Alexander Stubb, the pan-European security organization's chairman.
His comments came while visiting a refugee camp on the outskirts of
Tbilisi. He had earlier traveled through Russian-controlled
checkpoints to the city of Gori where Russian troops were still
present, deep inside Georgia.
Stubb, who is also the Finnish Foreign Minister, said he had
witnessed "atrocious sights". "There are Russian Interior Ministry
special forces bringing old people from villages, basically
emptying the villages on the South Ossetian side and dumping them
in Gori," he told Reuters.
(Deutsche Welle)
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