EU, NATO voice concern over Georgia shooting incident

The European Union’s chief diplomat and NATO’s secretary general have voiced concern over the alleged shooting of a convoy carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski and Georgian leader Mikhail Saakashvili on Sunday (23 November), stopping short of blaming Russia for the incident.

EU chief diplomat Solana - also ruled out a port blockade to stop piracy off the Somali coast, at Monday’s meeting. EU high representative Javier Solana said he regretted the shooting while speaking to reporters on Monday (24 November) alongside NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer after a meeting of the alliance’s North Atlantic Council and the EU’s Political and Security Committee, although he was not ready to assign responsibility for what happened.

“We are in contact with the monitors [in Georgia],” he said, adding: “We will see later today [what they report back].” “I don’t know exactly what happened,” said Mr Scheffer. “It is wrong and certainly not in the spirit of the [ceasefire] agreement …We are not blaming anyone, but I certainly blame those who started the shooting.”

The European Commission’s external relations spokesperson, Christiane Hohmann, said the EU executive was “very concerned” about what may have happened, although she underlined that a full account of events had yet to be delivered.

“Political dialogue the only way to proceed and this in the Geneva talks which are the place to talk about all open questions,” she said at a press briefing on Monday. Polish President Lech Kaczynski accused Russian soldiers of shooting toward his motorcade in Georgia, calling on the EU and NATO to “draw consequences” from the incident.

The French EU presidency said its embassy in Georgia is looking into the events, which took place at 17:40 local time near the border with the Akhalgori district - a disputed patch of ground near the Russian-held South Ossetia region.

Separately at the press briefing, the NATO chief and EU foreign relations boss ruled out a blockade of Somali ports in order to tackle the growing piracy problem in the area and prevent pirates from going to sea.

“Blocking ports is not contemplated by NATO,” said Mr de Hoop Scheffer.

Mr Solana also said a port blockade was not on the agenda. NATO has sent four ships, from Britain, Greece, Italy and Turkey, to tackle the piracy problem off the Somali coast.

Source of information: EUObserver
http://euobserver.com/9/27168