The International Reaction - August 11th

11.08.2008

The United States of America:

The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Zalmay Khalilzad, told the U.N. Security Council that a Russian-backed military operation in Abkhazia was under way;

The European States/ The European Union/ The European Council:

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb are planning to travel to Moscow Monday after spending more than a day meeting Georgian officials searching for a way to end the conflict; Stubb said they had put together some elements of a "forceful way forward" to a cease-fire and withdrawal plan; Sources close to the delegation said the two ministers, along with their Georgian counterpart, would visit the Georgian city of Gori Monday afternoon to see first-hand damage caused by Russian airstrikes;
French President Nicolas Sarkozy would visit the capitals of both Russia and Georgia on Tuesday in an effort to end fighting between the former Soviet republics; Sarkozy's office has confirmed that he plans to travel to Moscow to meet with Russian President Dimitri Medvedev;

UN

The Security Council's president, Belgium's Jan Grauls, said he was "surprised and dismayed" by Churkin's swipe at Lynn Pascoe, the U.N. undersecretary for political affairs. Churkin said Pascoe's briefing, which included a statement from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, "shows that the Secretariat of the United Nations and its leadership was not able to adopt that objective position that is required by the substance of this conflict;"