UN Security Council deadlocked over South Ossetia truce call

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(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-08-10 11:44

The Security Council had met late night Thursday and early Friday but failed to agree on a Russia-drafted statement that would call on Georgia and South Ossetian rebels to renounce the use of force.

A destroyed Georgian tank is seen at a street in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, August 9, 2008. [Agencies]

Georgia, backed by the United States and some other council members, rejected the wording calling for the renunciation of force.

Later on Friday afternoon, the council failed for the second time after holding open and closed consultations to discuss a revised version which would instead call on the warring parties to "show restraint and to refrain from any further acts of violence or force."

After Saturday's consultations, Alejandro Wolff, the US deputy ambassador to the United Nations, urged Russia to stop its military offensive, withdraw its troops from Georgia and accept international mediation efforts.

"The first thing that has to happen is that violence has got to stop and that foreign forces will have to be withdrawn," Wolff told reporters.

But "Russia somehow thinks it is exempt from all the calls to cease violence, from all the calls to withdraw," Wolff said.

Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said that Georgia should first withdraw its forces from South Ossetia and sign with the rebels an agreement on the non-use of force, and "then we can talk about a variety of other things including military and political arrangements."

On the council's failure to pass a cease-fire statement, Churkin blamed some council members for "procrastinating and attaching all sort of conditions" to the Russian draft.

"Unfortunately, the Security Council has lately been behind events," he said. "I am not sure we are now at the point when the Security Council can pass a document or even a press statement which would be meaningful."

South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia in the early 1990s and was governed by a secessionist government since then although its independence has not been internationally recognized.

On Friday, Georgian troops began a military action against South Ossetia's forces in an attempt to re-establish control over the region. In response, Russian troops moved into the region to fight the Georgian forces. Its warplanes also bombed the region.

Russia said the two-day conflict has killed 1,500 people and that the death toll is expected to rise.

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