RUSSIA: Russia weighed its response yesterday to a sharp US rebuke for alleged indiscriminate bombing in northern Georgia, in the Caucasus. Washington said the bombing could further fuel tensions in the turbulent region.
The Russian military has denied its aircraft bombed the zone.
Sources in Georgia said one man was killed and seven people were wounded in Friday's attack, which White House spokesman, Mr Ari Fleischer, said had been verified by monitors from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
"The United States regrets this loss of life and deplores the violation of Georgia's sovereignty," Fleischer said on Saturday. However, he quickly stressed his statement did not signal any deterioration in US-Russian relations.
Such official public upbraidings have become comparatively rare as Russian-US ties blossomed following Moscow's strong support for Washington's so-called "war on terrorism", launched after the September 11th attacks in New York and Washington.
Russian Defence Ministry chief spokesman, Col Nikolai Deryabin, told the Interfax news agency yesterday that reports of the bombing at the hands of the Russian military "can only cause surprise".
A duty spokesman told Reuters that senior officials at the Foreign Ministry were considering Russia's response to the criticism.
"They are currently studying Fleischer's comments, but it's not clear if there will be a statement or not. We can make no comment at the moment", the official said.
The Kremlin also declined to comment.
The Russian warplanes reportedly struck close to the lawless Pankisi Gorge, which the US believes could be a refuge for militant Islamists. The gorge also lies across the border from Chechnya, where Russian forces have been battling separatist guerrillas on and off for eight years.
Mr Fleischer said the US was "deeply concerned about credible reports that Russian military aircraft indiscriminately bombed villages in northern Georgia on August 23rd, resulting in the killing of civilians".
The attacks "escalate existing tension between Russia and Georgia", he said, adding that Secretary of State Colin Powell had relayed US concerns directly to his Russian counterpart, and stressed that a political settlement to the Chechen conflict was needed "urgently".
In Tbilisi, Georgian President Mr Eduard Shevardnadze said on state television that "the main thing is that the White House has reflected the real barbarity of this act". Relations between Russia and Georgia hit new lows in the past week as Moscow accused Georgia of turning a blind eye to Chechen guerrillas in Pankisi and of refusing to hand over rebels arrested by Georgian forces.
Georgia rejects demands for Russian troops to be allowed into the gorge. Mr Shevardnadze announced he had ordered his Interior Ministry forces into the gorge yesterday as part of a crackdown on crime there. At the same time, US-trained Georgian troops launched large-scale war games near Pichkhovani, a village around four kilometres from the gorge.