Russia faces pressure for full Georgia pullout
A Georgian fireman walks on the scene of a fuel tanker explosion yesterday in Gori. A train carrying fuel exploded on Sunday in a former military base near the Georgian city of Gori after hitting a mine on the railway track.Photo: AFP
A fuel train hit a mine and exploded near the stricken Georgian city of Gori yesterday as Russia faced renewed European Union pressure to make a complete withdrawal from Georgia.
The Georgian Interior Ministry said the rail track used by the train had been mined and a huge pall of black smoke could be seen across the Gori region after the huge explosion.
"The railway was mined and that was the reason for the explosion," Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP.
The blast was the latest fallout from from the five day conflict between Russia, where its troops held a strategic port, and the Georgian army.
Russia withdrew tanks, artillery and hundreds of troops from the heart of Georgia on Friday, saying it had fulfilled all obligations under a French-brokered peace agreement.
But Russian troops still control access to the western port of Poti and have established a checkpoint just north of Gori.
Acting as chair of the European Union, French President Nicolas Sarkozy telephoned his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday and asked him to withdraw his forces from a key road linking Poti to Senaki in western Georgia.
Sarkozy and Medvedev agreed on the need for an "international mechanism" in the area south of South Ossetia, a statement from Sarkozy's office said.
The Kremlin said it was ready to cooperate with the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor a buffer zone near South Ossetia, where fighting broke out this month.
But it added that international monitors would not replace Russian troops as a statement from the French presidency asserted.
"During the telephone conversation between the Russian and French presidents, there was no discussion about replacing Russian peacekeeping troops by an OSCE mission in the buffer zone," said a Kremlin spokesman.
The West sees the presence of OSCE monitors as critical to ensuring the success of the ceasefire.
The vague six-point peace plan has been interpreted differently by Russia and the West, with Russian claiming it has the right to leave peacekeepers deep inside Georgia.
France, Britain, the United States, Nato and other Western powers have demanded Russia pull back further but this has been rejected by Russia.
Georgian National Security Council secretary Alexander Lomaia told AFP however that he expected the Russians to withdraw from near Poti on Sunday.
"There were no changes in the position of Russian peacekeepers overnight but we are expecting that they will withdraw from Poti today," he said.
Russian troops poured into Georgia on August 8 to repel a Georgian attempt to regain control of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, which is backed by Moscow.
After smashing Georgia's small US-trained army, Russian troops fanned out through Abkhazia, another pro-Moscow breakaway region in the west, and pushed far into Georgian territory.
On Saturday, Russian soldiers backed up by four tanks were still on a bridge on the road heading from Poti to the city of Senaki further east and Batumi to the south, an AFP correspondent reported.
Some 500 Georgians expressed outrage over the continued presence of Russian troops in Poti, going up to the post waving Georgian flags and shouting "Russians go home!".
Two Russian armoured vehicles and lorries on Saturday controlled a checkpoint in the village of Karaleti outside Gori on the main road to the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali.
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