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US warship delivers aid to Georgia

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  • US warship delivers aid to Georgia

    The Press Association
    Sept 5 2008


    US warship delivers aid to Georgia


    The flagship of the US Navy's Mediterranean fleet has anchored outside
    a key Georgian port, defiantly bringing in tons of humanitarian aid to
    a city still partly occupied by hundreds of Russian troops.

    The USS Mount Whitney was the first Navy ship to travel to Poti since
    Georgia's five-day war with Russia last month. The continued presence
    of Russian troops here has been a major point of friction between
    Russia and the West, which insists Russia has failed to honor a deal
    to pull back to positions held before fighting broke out on August 7.

    The in-your-face anchorage at Poti came as US Vice President Dick
    Cheney visited nearby Ukraine, another former Soviet republic that
    feels threatened by Moscow's military aggression.

    Cheney pledged in Kiev, the capital, that the United States was
    committed to Ukraine's security and freedom and said Ukrainians should
    not be forced to live under Russia's "threat of tyranny, economic
    blackmail and military invasion".

    In a diplomatic counterpunch, Russia received support on Friday from
    six other former Soviet republics who issued a joint statement
    condemning Georgia for using force to try to retake control of its
    separatist province of South Ossetia.

    The declaration by members of the Collective Security Treaty
    Organisation - which groups Russia with Armenia, Belarus and four
    Central Asian nations; Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and
    Uzbekistan - also praised Russia for "helping peace and security" in
    the region. However, the nations did not go as far as Russia and
    recognise Georgia's two separatist areas - South Ossetia and Abkhazia
    - as independent nations.

    The Kremlin has watched the arrival of the USS Mount Whitney and other
    US warships carrying aid with deep suspicion, but a Russian Foreign
    Ministry official said no military action was planned in response to
    the US naval presence in the Black Sea.

    The Mount Whitney will unload aid at Poti's commercial port Saturday,
    right next door to Poti's badly damaged naval base.

    During the war, Russian forces bombed Poti, which has a large oil
    shipment facility, attacked the port and sank eight Georgian naval
    vessels in the harbour.

    Signs of destruction were all around. The missile boat Dioskuria - the
    flagship for Georgia's small navy - stood with its hull under water,
    its badly damaged communications masts protruding from the water. The
    windows of Georgia's naval headquarters were shattered, the buildings
    pockmarked by large calibre ammunition.
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