| JRL HOME | SUPPORT | SUBSCRIBE | RESEARCH & ANALYTICAL SUPPLEMENT | |
Old Saint Basil's Cathedral in MoscowJohnson's Russia List title and scenes of Saint Petersburg
Excerpts from the JRL E-Mail Community :: Founded and Edited by David Johnson

#12 - JRL 2006-219 - JRL Home
Russian Pundit Says Georgia Should Be Declared 'Illegitimate' State

MOSCOW. Sept 29 (Interfax) - Key Russian analyst Gleb Pavlovsky said on Friday that Wednesday's arrest of Russian army officers in Georgia on spying charges and other Georgian moves "for the past ten years, at least," were terrorist acts and that Russia should therefore legally declare Georgia an "illegitimate" state.

"The initial Russian actions (in response to the arrests) are absolutely correct because they clearly lead to the isolation of the Tbilisi regime, but before taking further action, especially if it means use of force, we should initiate forming an international legal base for the isolation of the Tbilisi regime. For example, that state should be declared to be illegitimate, say under the Russian law on terrorism," Pavlovsky, who is president of the Effective Policy Foundation, told Interfax.

Russia often forgets, he said, that, to receive support for its moves from the international community, it needs legal justification for them.

"If we lawfully declare the Tbilisi regime to be terrorist and supporting terrorism, it will force our partners to take our grievances seriously. After that, further action can be taken," Pavlovsky said.

He argued there was enough evidence to declare the Georgian government a terrorist regime.

"There are very many such reasons, actions of this kind have been committed for the past ten years, at least. Georgia definitely supported terrorists - this is legally recorded - during the two Chechen wars. There has been the Pankisi Gorge story (the Pankisi Gorge is an area in Georgia where many Chechen refugees settled), there has been the transportation of terrorists by bus through Georgia in the direction of Abkhazia, there have been terrorist actions against our fellow citizens in Abkhazia and South Ossetia," he said.