Georgia: A small pawn in the Great Game

[ze_dscherman]

MOSCOW - As Georgia welcomes in a new president this week after the US-encouraged regime change in November - despite Russia's last-minute efforts to mediate between warring sides - Moscow and Washington appear to be on the verge of a micro-Cold War over the country. Subsequently, the Kremlin remains wary.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear that Moscow is concerned that Eduard Shevardnadze's resignation took place under "forceful pressure". Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov stated that the regime change was not entirely democratic.

Moscow and Tbilisi have been divided on a variety of issues, including the continued Russian military presence in Georgia and its breakaway republic of Abkhazia. However, tensions between Russia and Georgia have been seen in a wider context of the Great Game over lucrative transit routes for crude oil from untapped fields in Central Eurasia.

It has been understood that Georgia's continued status as a failed state would have disrupted the United States' plans for a new pipeline from the oil-rich Caspian Sea to the West. Therefore, a stronger leadership was needed to secure the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline from Azerbaijan's and Kazakhstan's Caspian oilfields through Georgia to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. The US$2.75 billion project is due to start pumping oil in 2005.

Much more, with precious information on pipelines and politics: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/FA07Ag03.html