Georgia: Does EU-Russia Agreement Promise Peace ... or More Confusion?

Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili has called Tbilisi's latest withdrawal agreement with Russia a "moderate success," but uncertainty lingers over how the situation on the ground would look after the promised pull-back of Russian forces.

According to the September 8 agreement, Russia pledged to withdraw its troops from checkpoints outside the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia by mid-October. Within a week, it has promised to vacate five checkpoints it operates along the western coast of Georgia. Both withdrawals are contingent upon Georgia's agreement to a non-use of force resolution against Abkhazia and South Ossetia, an agreement that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev indicated he had already received.

In addition, at least 200 monitors from the European Union -- plus Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and United Nations monitors -- will be able to patrol the areas bordering South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Medvedev said that the pull-out would "be carried out within 10 days after the international mechanism is in place, no later than October 1."

While there has been no visible sign that Russian troops have withdrawn in accordance with the earlier August 12 cease-fire proposal, Georgian officials remain cautiously optimistic that Moscow will now be forced to remove its forces from positions well outside of the two conflict zones.

"What is hopeful in this document is it has very concrete timelines and very concrete geography," State Minister for Reintegration Issues Temur Iakobashvili told EurasiaNet.

According to Irakli Menagarishvili, a former foreign minister, forcing the Russians to fulfill their commitments is "a matter of time."

Menagarishvili argued that while it is possible that Moscow will make some gesture out of "respect" for the French, who brokered the latest deal, it is impossible to "exclude" that the Russians will attempt to "invent something" that will prolong the process. "Finally, of course, yes [the Russians will leave]," he said. "Russia will be obliged to respect the international community ? but before they are forced to do that, they will inflict a lot of damage."

Which Russian checkpoints are included in the withdrawal poses one potential problem. According to Iakobashvili, the territory affected by the agreement is still "under interpretation."

The Georgian government has promoted the new agreement as a move to revert to the military positions held prior to the clash with Russian forces on August 8. So far, however, there has been no sign that Moscow is prepared to do that.

On August 13, one day after President Medvedev signed the initial cease-fire proposal plan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, announced that Russian troops will remain in Abkhazia and South Ossetia for a "long time." More than 7,000 Russian soldiers will remain in the conflict zone, he said -- a considerable increase from pre-war levels.

The Georgian government claimed on September 8 that Russian forces had set up a new peacekeeping post outside of the Black Sea port city of Poti and reinforced troop numbers at an existing post there. The information could not be independently verified.

What the agreement will mean for formerly Georgian-controlled villages within South Ossetia also remains unclear. Within Georgia, much recent attention has focused on the village of Akhalgori, a sprawling hamlet not far from Tbilisi that has been placed under Ossetian administration.

Pro-Saakashvili parliamentarian Irakli Kavtaradze, the first deputy chairman of the Georgian parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, believes the lack of clarity is a sign that Medvedev is not in control of the Kremlin's decision-making process. The president is widely seen as a front-man for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Kavtaradze noted that now Georgia is unsure who is making decisions. "The real question is who is deciding?" he said.

Opposition politicians like Davit Usupashvili, a leader of the Republican Party, however, suggested that the international community's objectives have shifted. The European Union, he said, is now seeking primarily stability and security, rather than trying to remove Russian forces from South Ossetia and Abkhazia, according to guidelines outlined in the August ceasefire agreement.

"This is the approach to settle the military conflict which Georgia lost," he said, noting that there are few "good decisions" available for the country.

Under no circumstances can the September 8 agreement be seen as a diplomatic victory for Georgia, Usupashvili said. "The losing side ? needs to accept the least damaging agreements and arrangements. At the moment, with this agreement I don't think we lost more than we [already have]," he said."

Inside the buffer zone for South Ossetia -- a wide corridor of villages in the Georgian region of Shida Kartli which Russians claimed after the first few days of fighting -- Georgian residents expressed little hope that the agreement will bring peace.

On September 10, the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that a Georgian police officer was killed when Russian soldiers fired on police from their checkpoint outside Karaleti village, not far from the Georgian city of Gori. EurasiaNet has not been able to confirm the report with the Russian military.

A few kilometers north from Karaleti, in the neighboring village of Kutnisi, Muraz Iosebashvili was pessimistic that the Russians would ever leave. Their presence, he said, was not directly threatening, but caused villagers "horrible stress."

Few villagers have returned to their homes despite the fact that the village was never directly involved in the fighting, he told EurasiaNet.

Two villages away, in the Georgian hamlet of Tkviavi, not far from Tskhinvali, the scarred remnants of burned houses are scattered along unpaved roads. Maia Paliashvili, who returned to Tkviavi after fleeing the fighting, said she would only believe the peace agreement was in force when she saw international police officers replace the Russians and Ossetians who occasionally drive through the village.

"If they stand here, we will believe," said Paliashvili, referring to the international monitors. "Who has a guarantee [of safety] here?" she added. "No one."