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Putin blames regime change in Georgia on Shevardnadze`s policy
Moscow, Nov 24: Russian President Vladimir Putin today blamed the regime change in the ex-Soviet Republic of Georgia on misery and endemic corruption, but criticised its perpetrators for resorting to force.
Moscow, Nov 24: Russian President Vladimir Putin today blamed the regime change in the ex-Soviet Republic of Georgia on misery and endemic corruption, but criticised its
perpetrators for resorting to force.
Putin scathingly criticised former Georgian President
Eduard Shevardnadze, who resigned under opposition pressure
yesterday, saying his policies were the cause of his downfall.
He voiced hope that a new president to be elected within a
month and a half would pursue a more friendly policy toward
Russia.
``The change of leadership in Georgia is the natural result of a series of systemic mistakes in the domestic, foreign and economic policy of the nation's former leadership,'' Putin said during a cabinet session televised in part by Rossiya state television.
``Corruption has increasingly dominated both economics and politics in Georgia. People have stopped seeing any light ahead.''
After Shevardnadze, a former Soviet foreign minister, returned to power in his native Georgia in 1992 shortly after the Soviet collapse, relations between Russia and Georgia were often tense.
Georgian officials have accused Russian peacekeepers, deployed as a buffer force in the separatist province of Abkhazia since 1994, of siding with separatists. The Kremlin, in turn, accused the Georgian government of harboring militants from Russia's breakaway republic of Chechnya, on Georgia's northern border.
``The change of leadership in Georgia is the natural result of a series of systemic mistakes in the domestic, foreign and economic policy of the nation's former leadership,'' Putin said during a cabinet session televised in part by Rossiya state television.
``Corruption has increasingly dominated both economics and politics in Georgia. People have stopped seeing any light ahead.''
After Shevardnadze, a former Soviet foreign minister, returned to power in his native Georgia in 1992 shortly after the Soviet collapse, relations between Russia and Georgia were often tense.
Georgian officials have accused Russian peacekeepers, deployed as a buffer force in the separatist province of Abkhazia since 1994, of siding with separatists. The Kremlin, in turn, accused the Georgian government of harboring militants from Russia's breakaway republic of Chechnya, on Georgia's northern border.
Bureau Report