August 23, 2008 The Mysterious 'Sarkozy Letter' Isn't it funny how some 'western' politician still bluster about the signed ceasefire agreement over Georgia and Russian peacekeepers in Georgia. But they do this, of course, with a purpose. They want to change the accepted and signed ceasefire agreement. To understand what is happening here, one has to go back to the phases that led to the ceasefire agreement. I will try to do so below and unfortunately it will be a bit longish. So here is the short version:

The United States tries to change the signed ceasefire agreement over Georgia. After Sarkozy negotiated with Russia and the ceasefire was agreed upon by both sides, the U.S. was very disappointed (and mad with Sarko). Rice went to Paris and pressed Sarkozy to write a letter to Saakashvili that gives a very lopsided U.S./Georgia friendly interpretation of the ceasefire agreement. Legally that letter is completely without merit. But now the U.S. wants this lopsided interpretation laid down only in a letter from Sarkozy to Saakashvili to became a legal part of the ceasefire agreement via a resolution at the UN Security Council. It uses the 'Sarkozy letter' to make propaganda against legal troop movements and checkpoints the Russians are operating within Georgia. The media, of course, falls for it. Russia of course will never agree to that outcome. It has no reason to do so and still most of the pressure points. The situation on the ground:

The Russians have pulled their troops back into or near South Ossetia and Abkhasia along the peacekeeping lines that were agreed upon in the 1990s. They additionally keep lookout posts at Georgia's main port Poti and in Senaki as well as near the major east-west road north of Gori.

Map courtesy of BBC (the map is a few days old - there currently are no clashes) To any strategist the reason is obvious. The port at Poti is the most likely point through which heavier weapons could get into the country. (Turkey is unlikely to allow any weapon transports that could seriously upset its relations with Russia.) The outpost in Senaki is needed to provide a secure 'line of communication' from Abkhazia to the observer troops in Poti. The post north of Gori is a lookout for heavy truck and military traffic on that major road. These troops WILL stay there until Russia gets what it wants at the UN Security Council.

The U.S., of course, does not like that: U.S. Deputy State Department spokesman Robert Wood said the Russians "without a doubt have failed to live up to their obligations under the ceasefire agreement." An immediate concern expressed by all sides involved buffer zones outside of two Georgian breakaway provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia insists it has the right to create these zones under the cease-fire deal, but Wood said, "Establishing check-points and buffer zones are definitely not part of the agreement." Wood is of course wrong. Point 5 of the signed ceasefire agreement says: Russian forces must go back to positions they held prior to the outbreak of hostilities. Pending an international peace monitoring mechanism, Russian peacekeepers will take additional security measures. That is of course an excellent, short but wideranging formulation - from the Russian point of view. Any "international peace monitoring mechanism" will need a Security Council mandate or an OSCE agreement, both of which can be stalled until Russia gets what it wants. "Additional security measures" can arguably include about any military or police measure the Russians want to implement on the ground of Georgia. If traffic control by Russian peacekeepers in Tbilisi is needed as an additional security measure, there is little anyone can legally say against Russia implementing such. (They would not be so dumb to actually try such a thing.) The CNN report linked above tries to explain the U.S. justification for Robert Wood's faked outrage: In a letter clarifying that point, French President Nicolas Sarkozy -- who helped broker the deal -- wrote that such measures "may only be implemented in the immediate proximity of South Ossetia to the exclusion of any other part of Georgian territory." He added that the measures must be "inside a zone of a depth of a few kilometers from the administrative limit between South Ossetia and the rest of Georgia in a manner such that no significant urban zone would be included." Huh, what letter? Written to whom, when, where? CNN will not tell you any of that ... Here is the history of the 'Sarkozy letter':

In the early morning hours of Friday August 8 Georgia opened an artillery barrage against the South Ossetian city of Tskhinvali which was under protection of internationally acknowledged Russian peacekeepers. Russia asked for an immediate UN statement to restore peace, but the ''west' declined. (InnerCityPress live-blogged the day from the UN.) Within twelve hours Russia reacted and put forces on the ground to fight back the attacking Georgians. On August 10 the Georgian forces were mostly beaten and Saakashshvili offered ceasefire talks. On August 11 the French foreign minister Kouchner and his Finnish colleague Stubb made up some ceasefire agreement, presumably without talking to the Russians, which Saakashvili is said to have signed. They were supposed to bring that paper to Moscow, but there is no report that they ever arrived there. Either Georgia or Russia (or someone else?) rejected that paper. In the night from the 11th to 12th Georgian troops fled from the western part of Georgia and the central city of Gori towards Tbilisi as it was feared that the Russians would march towards the capital. On August 12 the Russian foreign minister Lavrov: sharply criticized the West for failing to convince Tbilisi to renounce force. “Our foreign partners have done nothing to force Tbilisi, to use their influence with Tbilisi, for the signature of a legally-binding document" on renunciation of force, Lavrov said. With Kouchner's mission aborted, Sarkozy flew to Moscow on August 12 to negotiate a new version. The Russians told him what they wanted and Sarkozy dutifully wrote it down. He then flew to Tbilisi but Saakashvili (and his U.S. minders) did not want to agree to the terms. The point of difference was one word in point 6 of the agreement: Launch of international discussions on status, security and stability arrangements for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The formulation was taken from the Kosovo case where it had been used by the 'west' to take Kosovo away from Serbia. Georgia demanded to take away the word "status" as this would endanger its 'territorial integrity'. Russia agreed because it found the formulation "discussion on security and stability agreement" strong enough for its purpose as it includes no guarantee for 'territorial integrity'. This is currently one point of trouble within the UN security council. The 'west' wants to have the words 'territorial integrity' of Georgia in the new resolution, Russia demands the exact quote from the signed ceasefire agreement which then in later negotiations could eventually allow to split off South Ossetia and Abchasia. After the word "status" was taken out of clause 6, Saakashvili accepted the ceasefire agreement but did not formally sign any paper. On August 13/14 Sec State Rice flew to Paris to talk with Sarkozy. She was supposed to take the formal agreement from Paris for signature to Tbilisi. But as the world only learned days later, she pressed Sarkozy to write a letter to Saakashvili to 'clarify' points in the ceasefire agreement in a way that changed the meaning of two important points of the original agreement. The Russians were verbally informed about the letter but said, "So what?" They made clear that in relation to them such a letter represents in no way a legal document. "Why should we care what love letters Sarko writes to Saak?" On August 15 Rice arrived in Tbilisi. Later that day Saakashvili was reported to have signed the ceasefire. But did he? Late on Friday US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov from her plane after leaving the Georgian capital Tbilisi. A US official said Lavrov told Rice Russia would faithfully implement the ceasefire agreement, but wanted to see Saakashvili's signature on the document first. Never trust anyone until the dotted line is really signed ... On Sunday the 16th Medvedev signed the formal agreement the French sent him, but somehow that version was different from the one Saakashvili signed (after signature such documents get swapped): The copy signed by Saakashvili somehow lost a preamble that said the document was the result of an agreement reached between Medvedev and Sarkozy. When this became known, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he would use diplomatic channels to find out who had modified the text. Rice picked up the document (and Sarko's letter) in Paris on her way to Tbilisi. The document that was sent from Paris to Moscow for signature had the preamble. The one to Tbilisi arrived without it. Did Rice take away the part that credited Sarkozy-Medvedev negotiations? Why? (How does this relate to the letter?) The negotiations were over, the documents signed and exchanged and the legal process closed. But then on Saturday(!), August 16, this somewhat weird report came out: PARIS, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Russia must withdraw from all major towns in Georgia under a peace accord it has signed, despite conditions authorising "additional security measures," according to a letter sent by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili. "As I specified at our joint press conference in Tbilisi, these 'additional security measures' can only be implemented in the immediate proximity of South Ossetia to the exclusion of any other part of Georgian territory," read the letter, made public by Sarkozy's office on Sunday. The French-brokered agreement drafted this week authorises Russian forces to take extra security measures on a temporary basis pending the arrival of international peacekeepers -- which requires a U.N. Security Council resolution.

...

Sarkozy's letter said that under the accord, Russian forces would not be authorised to remain in any major towns outside South Ossetia and road and rail transport should be guaranteed. "More precisely, these 'measures' may only be implemented within a zone of a few kilometres from the administrative limits between South Ossetia and the rest of Georgia, in such a way that no major urban centre is included -- I am thinking in particular of the town of Gori," the letter read. "Special arrangements will have to be defined to guarantee freedom of movement along the road and rail routes of Georgia," it said. None of these specifications are mentioned in the very short, legally signed and binding actual agreement. Why does Sarkozy believe he can interpret that at will and in this quite specific manner? S arranges a contract between A and B where B has to pay 10,000. After the contract is signed, S tells B that he interprets 10,000 as to be actually seen as 100. B very much likes that interpretation. But why should A agree to it? The letter that Reuters published on Saturday while reporting it to be published on Sunday seems to have been kept completely secret until the Inner City Press (ICP) got hold of it: While the document handed to Inner City Press Thursday at the stakeout begins, "The Presidency of the Republic [of France], for the sake of transparency, wished to make public the letter," afterwards numerous reporters and even senior diplomats in the Security Council asked Inner City Press for copies of Sarkozy's letter. Inner City Press made copies, for the sake of France's transparency. To sum it up: Sarkozy took a dictation from Russia for the ceasefire in Georgia, especially point 5 and 6. He went to Tbilisi and after further negotiation, the Russians agreed to a one word change. Saakashvili verbally agreed to that 'draft'. The U.S. didn't like that.

Then Rice flies to Paris and also gives a dictation to Sarkozy. He pens a letter to Saakashvili and includes the U.S. interpretation that the unlimited clause 'additional security measures' in the agreement actually is supposed to mean whatever the U.S. says it means. Rice takes the letter and the ceasefire document to Tbilisi and Saakashvili must sign. Now the U.S. in the public media and in the UN Security Council uses the formerly secret Sarkozy letter to argue that Russia is not keeping to a version of the ceasefire it has never agreed to. The Russian UN ambassador had rather opinionated words for that which you can hear and see in this RealVideo stream at 5:20. Posted by b on August 23, 2008 at 17:46 UTC | Permalink Comments