Russia does not want the Karabakh
conflict to be settled, Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili said in his
address to the UN General Assembly on September 25.
He pointed out that Russia keeps on annexing Georgian
territories and thereby weakening Georgia. He said that Russia does not want to
see the former Soviet republics - Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan -
strong. Saakashvili thinks that Putin does not want Armenia to gain victory
over Azerbaijan in the Karabakh conflict, because this would make Armenia too
strong and too independent. Neither does Moscow want Azerbaijan to gain victory
over Armenia. It is the conflict that prevents the nations from becoming
independent and joining the European Union, Saakashvili said.
"The Eurasian Union has been shaped as an
alternative to the European Union and unveiled by Vladimir Putin as the main
project of his new presidency - the new Russian empire," he said. Saakashvili
said: Because European and
Euro-Atlantic integration take a lot of time and: because there are moments
when you might think you are pursuing a mirage: some people in our region might
fall victim to fatigue and ask themselves: why not?" He said that
Kremlin's "mouthpieces", which he also described as "conscious
or unconscious 5th column" identify the EU with "the destruction of
family values, the erosion of national traditions and the promotion of gays and
lesbians."