EU right to avoid sanctions: Moscow

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(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-09-03 07:36

Russia praised the European Union Tuesday for taking a "responsible approach" to its conflict with Georgia by declining to impose sanctions on Moscow but said the EU had failed to understand its reasons for intervening.

Leaders from the 27 EU member states met in Brussels on Monday and threatened to postpone talks with Russia on a new partnership pact if Moscow did not withdraw its troops to pre-conflict positions in Georgia by mid-September.

But the leaders were unable to reach a consensus on the sanctions that some members, including the Baltic states, had been pushing for, highlighting the bloc's divisions on whether and how best to punish its largest energy supplier.

"In my view, the outcome is double-edged," Medvedev said in an interview with the Euronews television channel, recorded at his summer residence on the Black Sea.

The EU did not understand what motivated Russia to move into Georgia and to recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, he said. "This is sad, but not fatal because things change in this world."

Ahead of a visit by US Vice -President Dick Cheney to US allies in the region, a Kremlin aide said he expected Washington would also opt against imposing sanctions.

Cheney, due to leave Tuesday for visits to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine, has been an outspoken critic of Russia, saying last month its push into Georgia could not go unanswered.

"We hope that a positive agenda in relations with the United States will prevail," Sergei Prikhodko, chief foreign policy advisor to President Dmitry Medvedev, told reporters.

The statements contained none of the strident remarks made by Kremlin officials in the run-up to the EU summit and appeared designed to signal Moscow's readiness to take a conciliatory stance with Western countries if they also avoid confrontation.

Russia sent troops to its southern neighbor in a brief war last month after Georgia tried to recapture by force its breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Russia said it was forced to intervene to prevent what it has called a genocide of the separatist regions by Tbilisi, and says it is honoring a French-brokered ceasefire deal.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Russia would suffer politically and economically for its military actions against Georgia even if it may have won short-term gains.

But he conceded that it did not make sense for the EU to isolate Russia, a major supplier of European oil and gas.

Agencies