Nato brands Russia unlawful as Miliband heads for Tblisi

FOREIGN Secretary David Miliband is set to travel to the Georgian capital Tbilisi following a meeting of Nato ministers which denounced Russia's involvement in the region.

Mr Miliband said the Nato ministers were clear Russia had broken international law during the conflict over the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia.

Speaking after the emergency summit in Brussels, he told reporters: "The Nato membership was clear that Russia had violated international laws as well as the rules of the international game."

The UK Government has been criticised for failing to send a representative to Georgia during the crisis.

Mr Miliband said it had been agreed that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would visit Georgia before the Nato summit and that he would go afterwards.

"Britain has been extremely active on this issue," he said.

Mr Miliband said: "I am delighted that I am going to be able to go to Georgia to report on real Nato unity.

"Unity that Russia must abide by the ceasefire agreement and withdraw its troops, and a unity that there must be new practical and political support for Georgia as it seeks to defend itself and ensure that its territory is respected, that its independence and sovereignty is recognised but also that it starts on the route to Nato membership that was set out in May."

Under the terms of the EU-brokered truce, Russian forces must withdraw from inside Georgia to their positions before violence erupted earlier this month.

Mr Miliband said: "I think there was a real feeling in the Nato meeting today that Russia has failed to live up to its commitments and that has serious consequences for the trust that is placed in Russia as an international partner."

Russia needed to realise that the world had moved "decisively beyond the Soviet era", he said, and "force is not a basis to redraw the map" of surrounding nations.

Mr Miliband said there was no division within Nato that Russia had violated international law.

He added: "Russia wants to be a respected international player but it can only be so if it lives up to its responsibilities.

"That is the political drive that will ensure that Russia lives up to its commitment to withdraw its troops but also that it doesn't make further threats to other neighbours who treasure their own independence."

Mr Miliband said the approach to Moscow should be one of "hard-headed engagement" rather than seeking to isolate Russia.

But he said there was "no question" of carrying on with business as usual and holding Nato-Russian meetings as if nothing had happened.

Mr Miliband said the UK was willing to play a "full part" in sending observers to monitor the fragile ceasefire in the region.

He said: "Russian mind games on withdrawal do them no credit.

"The quick deployment of international monitors is also vital (the UK will play its full part in this)."

Mr Miliband said the UK was also committed to providing humanitarian aid to the area.

Mr Miliband said Nato's military commanders said the Russians were engaged in "military adventurism" in Georgia, beyond the boundaries of the disputed regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

He told BBC Radio 4's The World at One: "The scale of Russian military activity is very large and that is why Georgians are talking about an invasion and why the rest of the world, not just in the EU but elsewhere around the UN, are saying that Russia must live up to the commitments it has made to withdraw to before the August 7 boundaries."

The Nato ministers had agreed on a route map for Georgian Nato membership, he said.

"What we are going to agree today is a special mechanism that will bind Nato and Georgia together, a Nato-Georgia commission, that will take forward that commitment to Georgian membership."

He continued: "We have not been debating timelines today, what we have been debating is the route map.

"The route map involves practical co-operation as well as political co-operation between Georgia – the Georgian government, the Georgian military – and Nato."

Tory leader David Cameron visited Tbilisi last week, a high-profile trip which which highlighted the fact that neither Mr Miliband nor Prime Minister Gordon Brown had gone to Georgia.

But Mr Miliband said: "I don't think that is very significant. I talked with Condi Rice last week about how we had to make sure there was proper engagement with the Georgian government and we agreed that she would go before today's Nato meeting ... and I would go straight afterwards."

Mr Miliband said it was "complete nonsense" to suggest that tensions between him and Mr Brown over the Labour leadership had delayed a visit.
"I spoke to the Prime Minister about this issue yesterday as I have previously.

"This is an international crisis in which the Government, at all levels, is acting in a unified and effective way."