Sergei Lavrov accused the Georgian government of pursuing a patently anti-Russian line and announced Moscow would seek to close channels of illegal funding from Russia to Georgia because money was ultimately being used for military aims. He also said a Russian ban on travel and postal links would remain in force for the time being.
Although Tbilisi handed over the four Russian officers at the heart of the scandal Monday evening, Lavrov made it clear that Moscow saw their arrest was part of a broader strategy aimed against Moscow.
"The actions of the Georgian leadership have unquestionably become consistently anti-Russian," Lavrov told a news conference.
Since Mikheil Saakashvili came to power in Georgia on the back of the 2003 "rose revolution," both the government and parliament have visibly sought to remove Russian peacekeepers from conflict zones with two self-proclaimed republics and force the withdrawal of Russian troops from two Soviet-era bases that are due to close under agreements in 2008.
Lavrov said the espionage scandal was perfectly in line with the anti-Russian policy persistently pursued by the Georgian government in recent years.
"The officers' [case] is not even the culmination, but a reflection of the policy conducted by the Georgian leadership," he said.
Travel bans stays
With the European Union and United States appealing to both Russia and Georgia to avoid provocations in the ongoing dispute, Moscow seems likely to maintain economic sanctions against its southern neighbor.
Moscow banned Georgian wine and mineral water imports, a major source of revenue for the struggling Caucasus economy, earlier in the year. And on Monday Moscow announced it was closing travel routes to Georgia and suspending postal services. It also hinted it might suspend banking operations and money transfers between the two countries, which would hit Georgia's economy given that around 300,000 citizens of Georgia are said to work in Russia to support their families at home.
Asked Tuesday whether Russia will restore transport links with its former Soviet ally, which has a population of 5 million, Lavrov said. "Not yet."
Although the Organization for Security and Cooperation Europe officially received the freed Russian officers Monday night, Lavrov dismissed suggestions that international mediators should become involved in the dispute. He said sarcastically that third countries were already energetically involved in their relations.
"We have many times drawn the attention of those third parties, you may call them sponsors - those who supply weapons to Georgia and blocked a resolution at the UN Security Council designed to make Georgia take on obligations - to the problem," Lavrov said.
Moscow moved last week to refer the arrest of the army officers, which it dismissed as unsubstantiated from the start, to the Security Council, but the ambassador of the United States, which has provided financial aid and military training to Georgia, blocked the initiative pending, as he put it, White House approval.
Situated at the strategically important crossroads between the Caspian and Black seas, Georgia has become a subject of serious rivalry between Moscow and Washington in recent years. The U.S. has invested heavily in an oil pipeline from Azerbaijan via Georgia to Turkey and recently announced that it would provide $10 million to help Tbilisi's bid to join NATO.
Territorial issues
Lavrov also said the disputes with breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia were conflicts between Georgia and its regions, rather than the Russian-Georgian issues.
But he said the Georgian leader wanted to use NATO, which his country wants to join in 2008, as a cure-all for the ongoing standoffs. "It is clear now that Saakashvili's main goal is accession to NATO," Lavrov said. "He is hoping to resolve all other problems through this."
He also said Moscow had warned Western countries about the danger of conniving at the Saakashvili regime's policies with regard to Russia, its own people, and the conflicts on Georgian territory.
He pinned the blame for the persisting problems with South Ossetia and Abkhazia on Saakashvili, who he said has refused to fulfill agreements with the self-proclaimed republics. Lavrov said the country has also rejected the UN and OSCE's proposal to sign agreements not to use force while addressing problems with the breakaway regions.
"If the agreements had been honored, then the way to resolving [the problem] would have been simple," he said. "Unfortunately, all the problems are down to the Georgian side's rejection of agreements adopted earlier."
The minister said Tbilisi had backtracked on its commitment to set up a center to coordinate cooperation between law enforcement bodies of Georgia and South Ossetia in August and to resume a railroad service with Abkhazia.
Instead Georgia stepped up demands for Russian peacekeepers' withdrawal, Lavrov said, suggesting Georgia had received closer cooperation promises from NATO at the time.
The NATO foreign ministers decided in September that the alliance would step up contacts with Georgia to facilitate its bid to join the organization, whereas the U.S. promised financial support to help the country join the alliance this year.
Russia has been uneasy about its southern neighbor's NATO ambitions, which were declared by Saakashvili as a core objective for his government.
Georgia's "militarization"
Against the backdrop of Georgia continuing to build up its army and its defense minister reiterating a pledge to celebrate New Year's in the capital of breakaway South Ossetia, Lavrov said Moscow was alarmed by Georgia's militarization.
The foreign minister said the country had been purchasing large quantities of weapons financed, among other sources, by Russian criminal groups.
"They are purchasing arms in violation of regulations on the international arms market," he said, adding the weapons were mainly of Soviet or Russian origin earlier exported to countries in eastern and central Europe on contracts prohibiting re-sales to third countries.
He said Russia would not connive at the military preparations and pledged to shut down criminal channels in Russia and substantially cut the flow of illegal funds to Georgia. Just prior to the news conference, the Interior Ministry announced that it had temporarily shut down a Moscow casino that allegedly was controlled by the Georgian mafia.
Lavrov said the release of the Russian officers has not improved the situation.
"We do not want things to be as they were before, because everything was very bad," he said. "In addition to military preparations, to obvious preparations to seize South Ossetia and Abkhazia, repeated anti-Russian rhetoric and insults at the highest level, including personal insults cannot be ignored."
Although Russia resumed the withdrawal of two Soviet-era bases - another irritant for Georgia which demands their withdrawal ahead of schedule in 2008 - suspended following the arrest last week, the bases remain on high alert.
