WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President George W. Bush demanded Russian troops leave Georgia as he dispatched Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the country in a strong show of support for his pro-West ally.
Rice, who departed on her trip at 0345 GMT Thursday, will hold talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy -- who personally brokered the six-point ceasefire agreement -- then travel to Tbilisi to meet with pro-West Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
"The United States of America stands with the democratically elected government of Georgia, insists that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia be respected," Bush said in a brief White House statement on Wednesday.
Standing with Rice and US Defense Secretary Robert Gates at his side in the White House Rose Garden, he scolded Moscow for its attacks on Georgia and warned it had put Russia's post-Cold War embrace by the West "at risk."
"To begin to repair the damage to its relations with the United States, Europe, and other nations, and to begin restoring its place in the world, Russia must keep its word and act to end this crisis," he demanded.
Bush said he had received reports of Russian actions "inconsistent" with Moscow's statements that it had halted military operations and agreed to the French-brokered provisional ceasefire in the Russian-Georgian conflict.
"We expect Russia to meet its commitment to cease all military activities in Georgia, and we expect all Russian forces that entered Georgia in recent days to withdraw from that country," he warned.
Rice said Russia faced international isolation if it refused to respect the truce.
Reported ceasefire violations would "only serve to deepen the isolation into which Russia is moving" and "the very strong, growing sense that Russia is not behaving like the kind of international partner that it has said that it wants to be," Rice told reporters in Washington.
Bush said he had already spoken to Sarkozy and Saakashvili amid the peace push by France, which holds the rotating European Union presidency.
As an international aid operation swung into place, an American C-17 military aircraft landed in Tbilisi bearing medical supplies, shelter, bedding and cots, and Bush promised more would be on the way.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, said it will be reviewing the needs of the Georgian military, battered in more than four days of all-out fighting with Russian forces over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
But the comments by Bush, who postponed his vacation plans to track the crisis, drew an angry response from Moscow.
"The Georgian leadership is a special project for the United States," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, quoted by Interfax news agency.
"At some time it will be necessary to choose between supporting this virtual project and real partnership on questions which actually require collective action," he said, apparently referring to Moscow support for US-led diplomatic efforts to end nuclear drives by Iran and North Korea.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino reacted saying that Bush was "very clear-eyed about his relationship with the Russian leaders." She denied US-Russian relations were on an adversarial footing, but admitted they were "complex and complicated."
Rice told Lavrov that Washington stood firmly behind Georgia.
"As to choosing, the United States has made very clear that it is standing by the democratically elected government of Georgia," she said.
Rice also told Lavrov that Russia was not doing "a favor" to the United States by joining the diplomatic drive against Iran and North Korea as such efforts were intended to bring about a "stable" Middle East and Korean peninsula.
The Pentagon meanwhile denied comments by Saakashvili that the United States would take over control of Georgia's seaports and airports as part of the humanitarian efforts.
"It is simply not a requirement of this mission and it is not something we are seeking to do," said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell.
Saakashvili also had sharply criticized the initial US response to the crisis, saying early statements from top US officials on Moscow's push in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia were "too soft."
Washington has called an extraordinary meeting of NATO alliance foreign ministers next week and scrapped joint military exercises with Russia, France and Britain, in its first concrete responses to the armed conflict in Georgia.
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