Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company  
The New York Times
September 13, 2002, Friday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 9; Column 1; Foreign Desk 

LENGTH: 912 words

HEADLINE: Echoing Bush, Putin Asks U.N. to Back Georgia Attack

BYLINE:  By STEVEN LEE MYERS 

DATELINE: MOSCOW, Sept. 12

BODY:
In words echoing the language of the Bush antiterrorist campaign, President Vladimir V. Putin appealed today to the United Nations to support Russia's threat of military strikes against the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

In a letter to the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, and the four other permanent members of the Security Council, he accused the Georgians of a "grievous failure" to comply with a resolution to combat international terrorism. He also reiterated his warning that Russia would attack unless Georgia did more to root out what he called terrorists on Georgian territory.

Mr. Putin said bluntly that Georgia's harboring of Chechen fighters gave Russia the right to act in self-defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and the antiterrorism resolution passed last year after Sept. 11.

"If the Georgian leadership does not take concrete actions to destroy the terrorists, and bandit sorties continue from its territory," Mr. Putin wrote, "Russia, acting strictly under international law, will take adequate measures to oppose the terrorist threat."

Mr. Putin's warnings, first issued on Russian television Wednesday night, brought simmering tensions to a boil between Russia and its much smaller neighbor to the south. They also deepened the fear that the Russian war in Chechnya could spread still farther beyond its borders.

Russian aircraft reportedly have crossed into Georgian airspace at least five times since July, evidently in pursuit of Chechen fighters. In the most recent such case, on Aug. 23, Russian bombs killed a Georgian man and wounded several people.

Although there were no signs today that military action against Georgia was imminent, Russia's defense minister, Sergei B. Ivanov, said commanders would be able to present Mr. Putin with plans for military operations within a few days.

It also appeared unlikely that Mr. Putin's appeal would win broad support. The Bush administration, which early this year sent special operations forces to train and equip Georgian troops, expressed its support for Georgia today.

"We take strong exception to statements yesterday by President Putin threatening unilateral action against Chechen targets on Georgian territory," a State Department spokesman said.

In New York, an administration official traveling with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell echoed that response, saying, "The Pankisi Gorge is in Georgia, and thus is a Georgian issue."

Russian attacks could put the United States in an uncomfortable -- even dangerous -- position between countries it considers allies in the campaign against terrorism. The White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, sharply rebuked Russia after the bombing raid on Aug. 23, a strike Russia still denies.

Georgia's president, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, who on Wednesday called Mr. Putin's statement "hasty," met for four hours today with his national security advisers but did not issue a public response to Mr. Putin's letter.

After the meeting, Georgia's defense minister, David Tevzadze, said the military was making necessary defensive preparations, but he did not elaborate. Georgia's Parliament adopted a resolution calling Mr. Putin's statement "a signal of the threat of aggression from Russia," and unjustified under international law.

"The roots of terrorism are in Russia," the resolution read. "Russia is using its inability to settle this problem as a motive for aggression against a sovereign state."

Characterizing Russia's Chechen war in terms familiar from the Bush administration's campaign against terrorism, Mr. Putin said in his letter today that the terrorists in Georgia were the same as those who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks, apparently meaning they had links to Al Qaeda. He also accused Georgia of failing to enforce the Security Council resolution passed after the attacks against the World Trade Center and Pentagon last year, saying Russia had a right to attack any country harboring terrorists as a matter of self-defense, as Mr. Bush argued in the case of Afghanistan.

"I count on an understanding of our position and support of the decisions that Russia will take in the interests of combating international terrorism, protecting civilian lives, ensuring stability and security in the Caucasus region," Mr. Putin said.

Relations between Russia and Georgia have been tense ever since the Soviet Union collapsed more than a decade ago, but they have badly soured ever since the snows melted along Georgia's mountainous 50-mile border with Chechnya this summer. That opened the rugged passes of the Caucasus for Chechen fighters to continue harassing Russian forces who have been fighting a Chechen separatist movement since 1999.

In late July, a large group of Chechens, who Russia said came from Georgia, clashed with Russian troops not far the town of Itum-Kale in Chechnya, killing eight Russians. Last month, under pressure from Russia, Mr. Shevardnadze ordered 1,000 police and security forces to move into the Pankisi Gorge, a rugged area said to be home to Islamic militants and Chechen fighters as well as an estimated 4,000 Chechen civilians who sought refuge there in 1999.

Mr. Putin ridiculed that operation, saying that Mr. Shevardnadze's government, after first denying the "presence of terrorists," signaled the deployment of security forces in advance so that any fighters who were in the region had time to leave.
 

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GRAPHIC: Photo: Eduard Shevardnadze, Georgia's leader, says Russia is "hasty." (Associated Press)
 
Map of Georgia highlighting Pankisi Gorge: Russia says Chechen fighters hide in the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia.      

LOAD-DATE: September 13, 2002