Missile shield deal adds to tension

President Saakashvili of Georgia labelled the Russians “barbarians” today as he signed a ceasefire agreement under which Moscow must withdraw its troops from his territory.

While Russia was bombing Georgia, Mr Saakashvili was quick to give his assent to the deal even though it does not guarantee the integrity of his country's borders or restrict Russian troops to the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Mr Saakashvili endorsed the six-point plan during a visit by President Sarkozy of France earlier this week but delayed formally signing it. He emphasised this evening that it was a temporary ceasefire agreement rather than a basis for a long-term settlement of the conflict.

Vladimir Putin's mastery checkmates the West

Michael Binyon says Russia has been biding its time - but its victory in Georgia has been brutal and brilliant

Multimedia

• Video: stories from the front line

• Pictures: Georgia conflict

BACKGROUND

• Hellraising for the rich: how Osborne met Rothschild

• Oleg Deripaska - oligarch at centre of storm

Related Links

• Rice arrives in Georgia amid scorched earth claims

• Video captures Ossetia attack on journalists

• Russian troops refuse to withdraw from Gori

Multimedia

• Charles Bremner: back in the USSR?

• Pictures: Russia-Georgia war

Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, held nearly five hours of talks with the President in Tbilisi today before calling for the “immediate and orderly withdrawal” of Russian troops.

“Georgia has been attacked. Russian forces need to leave Georgia at once,” she said, before warning that Russia’s military action would have a wider impact on its relationship with the US and the West.

“The Russian attack on Georgia has profound implications for Russia,” she added. “[The time has come] to begin a discussion of the consequences of what Russia has done. This calls into question what role Russia really plans to play in international politics.”

Dr Riuce said that the more difficult questions about the status of Georgia’s two separatist provinces, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, would be discussed later.

She said that a key immediate goal would be to bring observers into Georgia to monitor the ceasefire deal. She said that Alexander Stubb, the Finnish Foreign Minister, whose country currently heads the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, had already assured her that international monitors could be in place within days.

She said that access for humanitarian aid being provided by the United States and other nations “must be immediate and unimpeded”.

“When the security situation in Georgia is stabilised,” Dr Rice said, “we will turn immediately to reconstruction efforts.”

Under the agreement, Moscow must withdraw its combat forces from Georgia. But it allows Russian peacekeepers to remain in South Ossetia and conduct limited patrols outside the enclave.

It also does not commit Russia to respecting Georgia’s territorial integrity, mentioning instead only Georgian “independence” and “sovereignty”. Mr Bush has said that the United States supports both Georgia's sovereignty and territorial intergrity - ie its current borders.

Moscow does not accept that South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway province, are necessarily Georgian and today President Medvedev reiterated the Russian claim that it is impossible for Georgia to safely rule over the entire country.

“Unfortunately after what has happened it is unlikely that the Ossetians and the Abkhazians will be able to live in one state together with the Georgians,” he said, adding that his soldiers were ready to respond with force if they were attacked again.

US officials want the eventual status of the two areas to be worked out under existing UN Security Council resolutions which recognise Georgia’s international borders and Abkhazia and South Ossetia as Georgian.

The US and European Union had been pushing for Russia to agree to restore the situation in Georgia to the “status quo ante” - the position before Georgian troops moved into South Ossetia last week.

They now appear to have been forced to back down on the key issues of the mandate of Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia, which did not previously include outside patrols, and the territorial integrity question, which Russia had accepted prior to the conflict.

While negotiations continued in Europe, President Bush held a press conference at the White House this afternoon in which he declared: “The Cold War is over.”

“With its actions in recent days, Russia has damaged its credibility and its relations with the nations of the free world. Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century,” he said.

Times Recommends

• New York has lost its edge
• Copenhagen will fail – and quite right too
• More than 17,000 new underwater species found