EASTERN EUROPE

RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER THREATENS GEORGIA OVER BASES

MOSCOW – Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov threatened retaliation yesterday if Georgia puts Russia’s bases there in danger, hours after top Georgian officials increased pressure on the Kremlin to pull out by the end of the year. The two Russian bases in Georgia, holdovers from the Soviet era, are causes of high antagonism between Russia and diminutive, Western-looking Georgia. Russia has bristled at Georgian officials’ frequently expressed aim of deepening ties with NATO and the European Union. In a visit to Georgia this week, President Bush noted that Russia had committed itself to withdrawing the bases, but did not publicly urge the Kremlin to speed up its efforts. But yesterday, Secretary of State Rice said America is pushing Russia to end its military presence in Georgia as quickly as possible. She also spoke to the Senate Appropriations subcommittee of concerns about Georgia remaining together as a country because of the breakaway of Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions after wars in the 90s. If the separatist regions continue to pull away in the country, “there is not going to be very much left to the territorial integrity of Georgia,” she said. Russian officials have said the withdrawal from the Georgian bases would take at least three years, and maybe up to a dozen. Georgian officials say that is far too slow and suggest that Russia simply is aiming to prolong its presence in the Caucasus Mountain nation that the Kremlin regards as its geopolitical backyard.

– Associated Press

EAST ASIA

JAPAN CONSIDERS NUCLEAR TALKS WITHOUT NORTH KOREA

TOKYO – Japan is considering five-party nuclear talks without North Korea if the communist nation continues its boycott of negotiations, Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said Friday. Mr. Machimura told reporters that the aim would be to apply further diplomatic pressure on North Korea, which is believed to be extracting additional plutonium for use in nuclear weapons. A ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the five countries – Japan, South Korea, Russia, America, and China – had not yet agreed on whether to hold such a meeting. “It’s not that we have reached a consensus yet, but we are considering various ideas,” the official paraphrased Mr. Machimura as telling reporters. Pyongyang has withdrawn from talks that involved all six parties, and Tokyo and other participants have been frustrated so far in efforts to bring the North Koreans back to the negotiating table.

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

POPE SENDS VEILED MESSAGE TO CHINA

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI invited countries yesterday that don’t have diplomatic relations with the Vatican to establish ties soon – a clear reference to China that could complicate the Holy See’s relations with rival Taiwan. Pope Benedict didn’t identify the countries to which he was reaching out, saying only that he appreciated messages and gestures that came following the death of Pope John Paul II and his election as pope. But a Vatican diplomatic troubleshooter, Cardinal Pio Laghi, said Pope Benedict was clearly talking about China. “It seems he has an invitation, a certain desire to open up … a certain openness to arrive at solutions for conflicts through dialogue,” Cardinal Laghi told a Catholic television station, Telepace. Pope Benedict made the comments in a speech to diplomats accredited to the Holy See, his first since being elected pope April 19. He delivered his speech in French – the language of diplomacy – to representatives of the 174 countries with which the Vatican has relations in a ceremony in the Sala Regia of the Apostolic Palace. “I’m thinking also about the nations with which the Holy See still hasn’t entered into diplomatic relations,” Pope Benedict told the ambassadors, many in formal dress with sashes and medals.

– Associated Press