Gas started flowing to Georgia yesterday after an explosion shut
off supplies from Russia, of which Georgian officials accused
deliberately triggering an energy crisis in its small ex-Soviet
neighbor.
Russia says Sunday's two explosions in its North Ossetia
province, knocking out the main pipeline taking gas to Georgia,
were the work of pro-Chechen insurgents and warned Georgian leaders
to tone down their rhetoric.
"This morning, partial supplies of gas to Tbilisi resumed,"
Presidential Chief of Staff Georgy Arveladze said. "It will take
several days to resume gas supplies nationwide."
The supply cut is the latest to hit Russia's ex-Soviet
neighbors, some of which say the Kremlin is using energy supply as
a political weapon against those that have opted to shift toward
the West and away from Moscow's sphere of influence.
The additional gas for Georgia is coming from neighboring
Azerbaijan that takes much of its gas via a separate pipeline from
Russia.
Officials with Russian gas monopoly Gazprom said the company was
pumping an extra 2-3 million cubic meters a day to Azerbaijan for
Georgia that is experiencing an unusually harsh winter.
Georgia's relations with Moscow have been prickly since a
pro-West government took power two years ago with officials often
charging the Kremlin of meddling in the affairs of the country it
once ruled.
"It was a deliberate action against Georgia," Georgian
parliamentary speaker Nino Burdzhanadze told Russia's Ekho Moskvy
radio, without offering any evidence to support her claim.
On Sunday, President Mikhail Saakashvili called it "outrageous
blackmail," likening it to a contract dispute earlier this year in
which Russia cut off gas to another West-leaning neighbor,
Ukraine.
Moscow rejected Georgian accusations, warning the country's
leadership that it was risking relations with Russia.
"Moscow is pretty much used to the behavior of the Georgian
government," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement quoted by RIA
News Agency. "What we see is a mixture of parasitic attitude,
hypocrisy ... based on hopes to find Western patrons for their
anti-Russian course.
"If Tbilisi has made up its mind to finally spoil relations with
Russia, it must have calculated all consequences of such a policy,"
the statement added.
The explosion came just after further talks between Georgian and
Iranian officials about a possible gas pipeline to Armenia and on
to Georgia, which would reduce Georgia's dependence on Russian
gas.
(China Daily January 24, 2006)
