Russian FM Sergei Lavrov: No Timetable for Pullout From Georgia

18 August 2008

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Russian troops have no timetable for withdrawing from Georgia under a cease-fire agreement both sides have signed.

Sergei Lavrov

Lavrov told reporters in Moscow Saturday the pullout is contingent on the security situation in the region.

Earlier, Russian General Anatoly Nogovitsyn said that Russian peacekeepers will never leave the Georgian breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. He denied Georgia's allegations that Russia bombed a key railway bridge west of the capital Tbilisi, in the Kaspi region, hours before Moscow signed the cease-fire agreement.

Television images showed a portion of the Kaspi region bridge destroyed.

Witnesses say Russian troops remain entrenched deep in Georgian territory, away from the Abkhazian and South Ossetian borders, and that they still surround the key city of Gori.

The Russian news agency, Itar-Tass, says the government is sending emergency crews to the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali to start rebuilding the battle-scarred city. Witnesses earlier reported that officials marched dozens of captives through the streets of Tskhinvali, forcing them to clean up rubble left from the fighting.

Also Saturday, witnesses in the Georgian port city of Poti said Russian forces looted the coast guard base there.

The U.S. military said Friday it will increase the flow of aid to Georgia, where the conflict with Russia has displaced an estimated 118,000 people. Four U.S. military aircraft already have delivered about 74 metric tons of supplies to Tbilisi - including more than five tons of medicine.

The United Nations refugee agency also plans to send more than 100 tons of aid this week, enough for more than 50,000 people.