Pat Dollard

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No Sign Of Pullout

NYT:

MOSCOW — A day after the American secretary of state Condoleezza Rice went to Georgia, not far from the front lines, to press for immediate withdrawal of Russian forces there, the Kremlin announced on Saturday that it had approved a framework for a cease-fire.

The Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, signed the six-point settlement after meeting with Russian security officials, the Kremlin press office said. But it did not specify whether Russia had specifically assented to revisions in one of the provisions, which the Georgians had considered a loophole that Russia could use to justify its advance deep into Georgia.

And on the ground in Georgia on Saturday, the situation remained largely unchanged, with Russian troops occupying large swaths of territory. The Kremlin gave no indication when they would be pulled out.

Ms. Rice visited Tbilisi on Friday to show support for Georgia, an American ally, and to win the approval of the Georgian president for a redefined cease-fire. As Ms. Rice spoke at a news conference, a Russian column of at least a dozen armored vehicles moved to within roughly 25 miles of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, by far the Russians’ closest approach to the city.

The battle of words on Friday sharpened as well: Mr. Medvedev accused the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, of harboring “idiotic ideas” that had provoked the war.

Mr. Saakashvili, emotive and hyperbolic compared with the measured Ms. Rice at his side, in turn referred to the Russians as “21st-century barbarians” who had essentially raped Georgia.

A top Russian general said that Poland, which the day before agreed to house an American antimissile system in its territory, had “100 percent” exposed itself to possible Russian retaliation. Polish officials agreed to the pact with the United States soon after the Russian attacks on Georgia, after months of expressing doubts on the issue.

Georgia has remained tense after several days of fighting left tens of thousands of people homeless and thrust the United States and Russia into a cold-war-like confrontation. In Washington, Mr. Bush on Friday warned of repercussions from events in a “small country halfway around the world.”

The humanitarian situation in Georgian villages in Russian-controlled areas continued to worsen on Friday. Georgia’s minister of health, Alexander Kvitashvili, estimated in an interview that as many as 3,000 people were trapped in Georgian villages, unable to come out for fear that marauding South Ossetians would kill them.

Bodies of Georgian soldiers still lay sprawled on streets in areas controlled by Russian forces, witnesses said, creating a horrible stench.

The number of Georgian deaths since the beginning of the conflict is 175, Mr. Kvitashvili said, including 115 soldiers. That number is expected to grow, as Georgian villages start to become accessible, and bodies are brought to morgues.

Besides offering vocal backing for Georgia, Ms. Rice, after about five hours of talks with Mr. Saakashvili, persuaded him to sign a revised version of the cease-fire framework that had originally been hammered out on Wednesday.

The six-point arrangement had been negotiated by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, but a dispute soon followed over one of its provisions, which the Russians had interpreted as allowing them to maintain a military presence on Georgian territory outside the two disputed enclaves, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Ms. Rice brought with her a letter from Mr. Sarkozy clarifying that this provision would not apply to populated areas or the main east-west highway that is the country’s lifeline, said Giga Bokeria, Georgia’s deputy foreign minister. That would mean, Ms. Rice argued, that the Russians would have to withdraw from Gori, a strategically important city 40 miles west of Tbilisi.

“With the signing of this accord, all Russian troops, and any paramilitary and irregular troops that entered with them, must leave immediately,” she said at the news conference.

The vagueness of the original provision appeared to have allowed the Russians to justify their occupation of Gori even after the two countries had agreed to the cease-fire framework.

A senior Western diplomat in Tbilisi, speaking on the condition of anonymity under normal diplomatic rules, contended that the Russian military maneuvers near the capital on Friday around the time of the Rice visit were deliberate. The diplomat said troops were “moving around to weaken the civilian administration and perhaps create the conditions for political upheaval down the line.”

American officials said Friday that Mr. Sarkozy had signed the original six-point agreement and attached the letter. French diplomats then presented the six-point plan with the signatures of Mr. Saakashvili and Mr. Sarkozy to the Kremlin.