Georgia, Russia compete to spin EU war report

Georgia and Russia both claimed yesterday to be vindicated by a much-anticipated European report into their war last year as the two countries competed to put a positive spin on its findings.

The European Union-ordered report said Tbilisi had triggered the war by launching an unjustified assault on its rebel South Ossetia region and that there was no evidence to back Georgian claims of a large-scale Russian invasion before the attack.

But it also accused Moscow of taking actions that helped provoke the conflict, of violating international law and reacting disproportionately by invading and bombing swathes of Georgian territory.

Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement that despite a number of "ambiguities" the report proved that Georgia was guilty of starting the war.

"The report contains a number of ambiguities," the statement said.

"However it cannot overshadow the main conclusion of the report about Tbilisi's guilt for unleashing an aggression against peaceful South Ossetia (and) the complete illegitimacy of Georgia's actions."

Georgia denied that the report clearly pointed the finger at Tbilisi for starting the conflict, noting that it mentioned years of provocations and unrest in the region before the war.

"From the very first page it says that the war did not start on August 7 or 8 last year, that it was a culmination of previously staged attacks and provocations," Georgian Reintegration Minister Temur Yakobashvili told journalists in Tbilisi.

"Russia's spin that Georgia started this war is not in this document," he said, adding that "overall the report is satisfactory."

The secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, Eka Tkeshelashvili, told journalists in a conference call that "almost all the facts in the report confirm Georgia's version of events."

In justifying their interpretation, Georgian officials repeatedly pointed to a paragraph in the report that reads: "There is no way to assign overall responsibility for the conflict to one side alone."

Both sides took issue with the report's claims that they had used disproportionate force during the conflict - Georgia against South Ossetia and Russia against Georgia.

The Russian statement blamed some European countries for continuing to politicise the conflict.

"We understand that a number of vague and ambiguous statements mean that approaches of many European Union countries to the August 2008 events and their repercussions remain politicised," it said.

Analysts said the report was left open to interpretation and by no means marked the end of the debate over who was responsible for the conflict.

"I think it gives harsher criticisms to Russia than many people expected, but it gives a little bit to everyone," said Svante Cornell, the research director of the Stockholm-based Central Asia-Caucasus Institute.

"Everything depends on how it's spun by the two countries and which version emerges victorious," he said.

South Ossetia and Georgia's other rebel region, Abkhazia, said the report confirmed Tbilisi was to blame for the war and called on Western countries to end political and financial support for Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

"If the West is serious about promoting peace in the Caucasus it must hold Georgia's President responsible for his reckless behaviour and reconsider its misguided policies," South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity said in a statement.

More than 250 people were killed and some 118,000 others fled their homes in the war, which was halted by an EU-brokered ceasefire.