Both houses of the Russian parliament called on President Dmitry Medvedev to recognize the independence of two breakaway Georgian regions that sparked Russia’s first foreign military incursion since the Soviet era. “Today we are faced with, I’m not afraid to say, a historic decision, to call upon the president of the Russian Federation to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia,” Sergei Mironov, the speaker of the upper house, said in an address to lawmakers in Moscow today.
South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which broke away from Georgia in wars in the early 1990s, have cited Kosovo’s Feb. 17 declaration of independence from Serbia as a precedent for their aspirations. Medvedev — who alone can decide on whether to recognize the territories — has said previously that Russia supports the regions’ decisions on their future status, while stopping short of formally recognizing them. President George W. Bush has insisted the regions remain a part of Georgia.
Both the lower chamber, the state Duma, and the upper house, the Federation Council, voted unanimously in support of independence.
“Medvedev will recognize both regions,” said Alexander Rahr, a Russia expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. “There’s no way out,” he said. “This is a consequence of the recognition of Kosovo by the West and Western policy in the Balkans.”
Russian Troops
The vote “is yet another escalation of the geo-political tensions in central and eastern Europe and is likely to further worsen the relationship between Russia and the West,” said Lars Christensen, head of emerging markets research at Danske Bank in Copenhagen.
Poster Comment:
Upping the stakes!
