Russia says Georgian move for South Ossetia was ‘like 9/11′

Jon Swaine
London Telegraph
Thursday, Aug 14, 2008

Georgia’s attempt to reclaim South Ossetia has been compared with 9/11 by Sergei Ivanov, the Russian Deputy Prime Minister.

Seeking to justify Moscow’s overwhelming response to Georgia’s attempt to reassert itself over the breakway province, Mr Ivanov said that Russia had no choice but to take military action, just as the US felt bound to respond after the attacks by al-Qa’eda on New York and Washington in September 2001.

“We just reacted because we didn’t have any other option. Any civilised country would act same way. I may remind you - September 11th, the reaction was similar. American citizens were killed. You know the reaction,” Mr Ivanov said.

International condemnation for the Russian response had taken Moscow by surprise, according to Mr Ivanov. “We didn’t think that we annoyed anybody,” he said.

Mr Ivanov also rubbished comments by David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary. Mr Miliband earlier accused Russia of engaging in “19th Century forms of diplomacy” in its “blatant aggression” towards Georgia. He said “the sight of Russian tanks rolling into parts of a sovereign country on its neighboring borders will have brought a chill down the spine of many people, rightly”.

Mr Miliband's claim that Russia was keen restore the Soviet Union was "total rubbish - to use a proper English word," Mr Ivanov said.

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, earlier taunted the US and Georgia over the crisis, describing the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili as a "special project" of the Bush administration rather than a proper state.