Nato Rebukes Russia and Signals Support for Georgia

The head of Nato today said there could be no "business as usual" with Russia as he declared strong support for Georgia after its brief conflict with Moscow over the breakaway South Ossetia province.

The organization's secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said he could not see a convening of the Nato-Russia council, set up six years ago, as long as Russian forces remained in Georgia,.

After emergency talks in Brussels, the 26 Nato members released a joint statement which said they had decided they "cannot continue with business as usual" with Moscow.

The rebuke to Russia was coupled with a strong message of support for Georgia.

De Hoop Scheffer said Nato would set up a commission to deepen ties between the alliance and Georgia, which aspires to join Nato.

He restated previous comments that Georgia should eventually become a member despite fierce Russian opposition.

The point was forcefully made by Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, who said that "a new line in Europe, where Russia somehow asserts that there are those who cannot opt for a transatlantic future, is unacceptable".

Rice insisted that Nato had an open door policy and countries wanting to join should be free to do so.

However, she added that the US and the west did not want to isolate Russia.

The British foreign secretary, David Miliband, said the Nato priority was to show support for Georgia and ensure that Russia stuck to a French-brokered deal to end the conflict.

"Russia needs to live up to the commitments that [the Russian president Dmitry] Medvedev has made ... we are absolutely clear that force cannot be the basis for demarcation of new lines around Russia," he added.

Moscow hit back, accusing Nato of pursuing anti-Russian policies and supporting an aggressive Georgia.

Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said Russia was not occupying Georgia and had no plans to annex the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

He went on to suggest that Nato was treating Russia like a child that needed discipline.

"The policy of drawing Georgia into Nato is not about Georgia corresponding with Nato standards but is dictated exclusively by aims that are nothing other than anti-Russian," he told a news conference.

"It appears to me that Nato is trying to portray the aggressor as the victim, to whitewash a criminal regime and to save a failing regime, and is taking a path to the rearmament of the current leaders in Georgia."

Russia has been seeking a session of the Nato-Russia council since the conflict flared 10 days ago, but the US has blocked it.

The US ambassador to Nato, Kurt Volker, has not met his Russian counterpart in Brussels, Dmitry Rogozin.

Today's Nato meeting was the first time the US and European governments had gathered to discuss how to respond to what many see as Russia's challenge to the post-cold war order in Europe.

With Europe split over how to react ? former communist states back a tough line but France and Germany favor a softer one ? the attitude at Nato was focused on minimum intervention to prevent jeopardizing the ceasefire in Georgia and the chances of a full Russian retreat.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France, which currently holds the EU presidency, is threatening to call an emergency summit of EU leaders if Russia fails to deliver on its promised withdrawal from Georgia.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said it had agreed to immediately send 20 unarmed military monitors to the areas near South Ossetia, and eventually deploy up to 100 in the breakaway Georgian region.