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Germany's Delicate Mission

Merkel to Urge Medvedev to Embrace Diplomacy

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday. Berlin is hoping that the even-handedness of its reaction to the conflict with Georgia will help persuade Moscow to tone down its rhetoric and swear off further violence.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is embarking on a delicate mission on Friday, as she travels to the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi to meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. In contrast to the United States and many European nations, Germany has been extremely careful not to blame either side in the conflict between Russia and Georgia that erupted last week. While insisting on the integrity of Georgian territory, Berlin is also trying to keep the channels of communication with Moscow open.

According to the Russian ambassador to Germany, Vladimir Kotenev, Medvedev is to try to persuade Merkel that Georgia and not Russia was the aggressor in the conflict that broke out in the Georgian breakaway province of South Ossetia last Thursday. He told Germany's mass circulation Bild newspaper on Friday that Medvedev would present the German leader with photographs of alleged Georgian atrocities. "Women and children were murdered, churches packed with refugees set on fire and entire villages were razed," Kotenev said.

Russia has claimed that the hostilities only broke out when Georgian troops moved in to try to retake the separatist region. Kotenev said that Medvedev would also be warning Merkel about the dangers of allowing the EU's Eastern European members to influence the bloc's policy toward Russia.

The extremely cautious Merkel is now wading into the fray that has been marked by tit-for-tat accusations of atrocities from both sides. Although her meeting with Medvedev had been planned long in advance, it is now to focus exclusively on the Caucasus conflict. Merkel is expected to try to convince the Russian president to tone down the rhetoric and embrace diplomacy in the showdown with Georgia. She will also seek assurances that Moscow avoid further violence and pull its remaining troops out of Georgian territory.

On Wednesday her spokesman Thomas Steg told reporters that two points were sacrosanct for Germany. "The first is that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia are not called into question in future talks. The other is that it is totally unacceptable to question the legitimacy of the democratically elected Georgian government."

But things do not bode well for Russia agreeing to either of these points. On Thursday Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Georgia "can forget about" getting back its breakaway provinces. "It is impossible to persuade South Ossetia and Abkhazia to agree with the logic that they can be forced back into the Georgian state," he told reporters. And to drive the point home Medvedev met with the separatist leaders of both regions in the Kremlin on Thursday.

After her meeting with the Russian president, Merkel intends to travel to Tbilisi to meet Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili on Sunday. As of Friday US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was already in the Georgian capital where she is hoping to persuade Saakashvili to sign up to the fragile deal based on the cease-fire agreement, which includes a plan to begin international discussions on the future status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The Georgian president has said he will need to take "a closer look" at the proposed text before signing anything. Tbilisi has accused Russia of ignoring the truce so far.

Russia still has tanks and soldiers in three Georgian towns, three days after declaring its military offensive over. On Friday, Russian tanks and armored vehicles were again blocking the strategic town of Gori, Reuters reports. There are also reports of Ossetian militias raiding and looting Georgian villages abandoned by Tbilisi's forces in the wake of the Russian counter-attack.

Merkel supports the six-point peace deal that French President Nicolas Sarkozy brokered early in the week. According to Reuters, German officials described the plan as a "foundation for a future solution," but said much work needed to be done to turn into a binding document acceptable to both sides.

Calls from some EU member states, particularly those in Eastern Europe to deal harshly with Moscow by scraping talks with Russia on a new strategic partnership have put Germany in a tricky position. Germany is heavily dependent on Russian energy and remains an advocate of closer European ties with Moscow.

In addition Berlin annoyed Washington earlier this year when it led the opposition to put Georgia and Ukraine on the track to NATO membership, arguing that it would provoke Russia. Merkel's advisors have told Reuters that she is skeptical of Saakashvili, who has strong backing from the US.

The German government's representative for Russian affairs, Andreas Schockenhoff, said that neither the EU nor Germany would take sides in the conflict. A solution required both sides reaching an agreement. "That is very difficult at the moment and will take a while. At the moment the hate and mutual mistrust is so great that we must use every chance to get the two conflicting sides to the negotiating table," he told Germany's DDP news agency.

Ruprecht Polenz, the head of the German parliament's foreign affairs committee, pointed out that Germany had criticized Russia for its "disproportionate" actions. He told DDP that this had been done in a tone that made it clear that Berlin above all wanted to ensure that the lines of communications were once more established between Georgia and Russia, which is required for a "negotiated cease-fire."

This stance was reiterated by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, speaking to Die Welt newspaper. He defended the German government's position, saying that it was clear that "If the EU wants to play a role in reaching peace, it needs open channels of dialogue to Tbilisi and to Moscow."

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