welcome back a quick look now at the main stories we're covering today are the drive stock and apparel of the show slide continues as europe's markets open down following a similar grim trading of eva and on wall street well it spurred by a gloomy u.s. economic outlook and euro zone's. president medvedev is urging that syria's leader to start reforms and talks with the opposition or expecting some future protestors reject president assad's offer of change as a tax increase on bin strongholds. hardline muslims in britain are trying to put

london under strict sharia law but critics say it's a political tool to fly and split the country. and next on the eve of the a third anniversary of the south of such an war president medvedev talks to russian and georgian media about actions and consequences to station that's coming right up . i said mr president thank you very much for agreeing to answer our questions let us go back to the events of two thousand and eight back then you met with the georgian president mikheil saakashvili and there was an impression at that point he was in the east and the moscow that he had arrived at some sort of an accord and the dispute would not be allowed to boil all into an armed conflict which is what you tell us whether you manage to agree on an ascent with the georgian president. says. the question you know catherine i had the same impression of the time when i

can still recall meeting president saakashvili for the first time it was in some petersburg we met in the constantine palace and mr secretary arrived i told him literally you know there are many problems in the region of the moment georgia isn't obs with these unrecognized states but i can assure you that as a newly elected president of russia i should do everything in my capacity to help him find some compromise solution that would accommodate everyone i would eventually facilitate a reintegration of georgian territory if that's acceptable for all the parties in age a negotiation naturally this is what i told him all the word for word his response was but of course we are ready to cooperate and i also have this impression that we could at least try to find some creative solutions if not a new chapter entirely but first of all there was an opportunity to meet on a regular basis which i can tell you earnestly i spent the next month checking regularly for any feedback from our georgian counterparts there was nothing but at the same time georgia was getting more and more visits from envoys from across the

ocean but as they would be dubbed in soviet speak the moment of truth for me as i realized later while analyzing those events in hindsight over and over again came with a visit by u.s. secretary of state condoleezza rice will thank following that visit my georgian colleague simply dropped all communication with us he simply stopped talking to us . he stopped writing letters and making phone calls it was apparent that he had some new plans now and those plans were implemented later mr president am i correct to assume that the way you see it that visit by the u.s. secretary of state was meant to urge president satisfyingly into war. but i must know i don't think so the united states is a very large country headed by pragmatic people but in politics connotations and nuance is a very important as it is i don't believe the americans have heard georgia's president to invade but i do believe that there were certain subtleties and certain

hints made statements like it's time to restore constitutional order or it's time to be more assertive which could effectively feed saakashvili as a parent hopes that the americans would back him in any conflict that they would stand up for georgia and even go to war with the russians therefore i do see a relation between ms rice's visit to georgia and the events that followed just as i see a link in my further discussions with the u.s. president our phone conversations and then our personal meetings so there was no green light on the white house this is a phrase they often repeat when analyzed in the war of two thousand and eight. well i would have to at least have some official information or intelligence reports to be able to make such a statement i don't have them but we can make an analysis my jordan counterpart ceased all communication with us following the visit by conda lisa rice maybe that was just a coincidence but i'm almost absolutely sure of that was when they came up with

a plan for the military gamble which ensured in august two thousand and eight all this in any case mr president war represents a failure of diplomacy looking back at the situation three years later what would you have done in a different way what is it that russia fails to do in order to prevent a war with i can tell you frankly how do i realized back in july two thousand and eight that mr sarkozy billy was nurturing such plans in his inflamed mind maybe i would have addressed him in an even tougher way and i would have tried to drag him out of his environment at home get him to come to russia or some third country in order to talk to him simply talk him out of this but of course i had no idea so when it all happened even though we had been aware that there were plans in georgia to restore their territorial integrity through the use of force i still thought it was a paranoid scenario that would never become reality you always keep hoping that common sense will prevail over this kind of rationale that is why i was surprised by what

happened on august the eighth and i've explained it many times i realize that by unleashing this war circus fully had personally devoted his country to destruction and that is the scariest part both for him and for the georgian people. russian forces reached police. but i believe that the peace enforcement operation which took five days was a mission accomplished our mission was not to capture tbilisi or any other city in georgia our only objective was to halt the invasion that sucker's really had unleashed one side's i'm neither a judge nor an executioner so i'd like to stress once again that it's up to the people of georgia to assess saakashvili and decide his fate through a democratic vote well maybe they could also use other means the way it sometimes happens in history but deposing saakashvili by force was not on my agenda back then and i can tell you earnestly i still think it was the right decision even though it

would have been a piece of cake. but one more question in here of if they still believe that the initial response was legitimate asked self-defense and further actions of the russian troops were excessive why wasn't it an option to push the georgian forces out of the set yet and stop at that point. you know sophie people are free to make speculation like that and i have come across them many times to try putting yourself in the shoes of russia's commander in chief my shoes that he has assured sure we could have nearly forced them out and stop their. hearing from georgia we should fall back to our initial position and our american friends and their allies will help us rearm get our new aircraft and whatnot and then with your resume the same offensive with renewed vigor the world will letting them do that it would have been a crime against the memory of those who died protecting their land and therefore

our mission at the time was to destroy georgia's war machine so the region wouldn't be able to target civilians. and the russian federation because as you know it's all mixed there but those that want to let it go. mr president you were referring to the peace enforcement operation and i keep thinking back to today libya and syria when do you consider it acceptable to step in what is your rationale for deciding whether it's ok to launch a peace enforcement mission. here is russia being lenient to get afy in libya and here it is imposing sanctions against syria at the ocean. you see alexey it's always case by case there are no identical countries and there are no identical solutions i guess it's clear to you what is going on in libya so there's a man who has been running the country for forty years and at some point he decided to use force against his own people this was condemned by the entire international

community including russia which is. taking any part in the military campaign raz a few nations are attempting to instill order in libya for military means we don't think it's the right thing to do but there is one nuance you should keep in mind georgia had been split into three parts by the time of the war it should have been about pulling the country back together for them rather than merely restoring constitutional order whereas libya is still in one piece such a risk does exist for libya but so far all the parties in the conflicts look like loading the so-called rebels in the program daffy forces have pledged to preserve their country's territorial integrity so the situations are quite different however i'm not saying this to explain how we make decisions i'm merely trying to demonstrate that all of these situations and scenarios are totally diverse this goes for other countries as well. i think. and i should syria syria is a more complex issue but sadly their situation has been unfolding in

a very dramatic way so far. all of us practical politician should keep a close watch on the developments in that country get half a for one had issued unequivocal orders to slaughter opposition activists by contrast syria's president never ordered anything like that. unfortunately people are dying in syria in grave numbers and that arouses our deepest concerns therefore in my discussions with president assad during our personal conversations and in our correspondence i've been advocating one principle idea that he should immediately launch reforms reconcile with the opposition restore civil accord and start developing a modern state should he fail to do that he's in for a grim faced and we will eventually have to take some decisions on syria to actually we've been watching developments very attentively the situation is changing and so we're already active on the minutes.

and if let's look at some of the numbers in the wake of the war russian state and the representatives of the cells a city has defacto government i think the frightening scene of all the claims well two thousand lives that was the number that was announced later on this investigative committee estimated the casualties if not more than one hundred people. while that is well l.h. talk of two thousand that had served as one of the main reasons paunch of the so-called peace enforcement operation but how do you account for this discrepancy no. limits of what may have explained by rationale for taking that decision on the human rights occasions you see i didn't get any figures for motivation this isn't exactly a case for mathematics of more noise let me remind you what was going on there on the ninth. between august the seventh and all because the eighth i received

a phone call from the defense minister i was on vacation at the time sailing down the volga river and the whole world was looking forward to the olympics that were about to take off in china the minister told me that georgia had launched a full scale combat operation to be honest my initial reaction was complete without orders and i told the minister we should check this really completely out of his mind maybe it's just a provocative act and maybe he stress test seti and trying to send us some kind of message and i will later the minister reported to me this is no bluff they've unleashed an all out artillery barrage and they're using grad rocket launchers and . i said all right i'll wait for another update some more time passed and the minister called again i have something to tell you i believe they've just leveled a tent full of our peacekeepers killing every one of them and what was i supposed to do i said return fire and shoot to kill no figures had been announced at that point unfortunately such situations are always about instant situation reports and

instant decisions and difficult ones to which unfortunately i can tell you that was the hardest night of my life casualty estimates started coming in later i need to say that i did diverted indeed and they still do yet i'm not a detective north atlantic expert i don't perform exhumations are sent in friends and colleagues tell us that many bodies were buried back then and remain missing to this day meanwhile georgian analysts present different estimates but you know we can't use this kind of logic two thousand lives is serious enough but the one hundred fifty doesn't even qualify as casualties absolutely sexually. mr president you said you gave the order to return fire the operation continued after that heavy weapons rolled in nam a conflict turned into an all out war could you tell us about how you made the decision to continue the operation and another question that all our colleagues would like answered who called who first. did you call prime minister putin

invasion or did he call you. the first time i contacted him about a conflict that was about twenty four hours after it had broken out that was involved was already ablaze mr putin just made a statement condemning tbilisi's move that was the right thing to do of course we spoke twenty four hours after the attack over a secure line i do understand it's not very appropriate to discuss matters like this by cell phone it's also a lot of trouble to establish a secure line with someone who's in a different country but we talked and we talked more when he came back but even before his return i called a meeting of the security council i explained my position my decision to return fire and then gauging conflict security council members voiced their support for my decision some time later we had the meeting in sochi which mr putin attended in relation to this we have to mention mr sarkozy who was at the time chairman of the

you know i can't talk about him without a smile unlike the other president we discussed today because i like him. yes i see of according to some it was so cozy who persuaded you to halt the russian forces march towards tbilisi with. of course not no head of state is capable of talking another head of state into anything look at the world trying to talk about into giving up persuaded him to do anything you know and i don't think they will he would sooner die in his bunker let me stress this again taking cities was never our goal our goal was to stop the war machine which was attacked time aimed at two breakaway territories and regrettably at our citizens. he did was very current he called me and said i heard there was a conflict do you want me to fly over to moscow i said i would be happy to see him then he told me i'm currently chairing the a you i could come over to discuss the incident much and he's very good at this

sort of thing and he loves doing it he came to moscow and we talked i explained my position to what he told me i understand and i agree that some things i will be able to say in public some i won't but regardless of that i want to have a part in stopping this conflict of what i told him alright let's put a plan together what that plan was later called. the ceasefire. i told him he could take atlanta georgia the best thing about what he did was probably that he had the courage to come to russia at a time when literally everyone was talking about what we had done it was brave enough to go on to georgia with our initiatives and he garnered a satisfactory reaction from the georgian authorities president saakashvili first and foremost and that's that was his contribution to the diplomatic corps that helped solve the conflict i think in the west it's a belief that recognizing our policy in south ossetia is not in accordance with the spirit of the peace treaty i needed that sarkozy plan which at the end of the war

called for the return of the armed forces to the pre-war positions pressure though recognized the sovereignty of this republics and kept its armed forces in the region right now there are russian military bases in every president south ossetia how does. sarkozy the co-author of the plan reacts to this so that i can say that i never discussed the matter with him he did not come to moscow to discuss that he was never involved in the letter of course i can tell you that he and several other e.u. representatives disapproved of the decision but they told us we were creating problems for ourselves i heard them but pleasing our partners here not my priority when i made this decision. and as for the medvedev psycho's the plan it was not about the breakaway republics part of your plan was aimed at stopping the war but billy's undertaking had caused in that sense it was a complete success russia's position on the bat is quite simple probably made the plan both carried out and it was successful i consider all other interpretations of

the events to be wrong. but french officials prime minister philo i'm recently president sarkozy have said that they were still waiting for president medvedev to complete what about of serco using plans if. i can tell you one thing that france has its own position and so does the e.u. these positions are different from ours we can't do anything about that they're just different but i believe i have fully completed the medvedev sarkozy plan the plan said nothing about russia not recognizing abkhazia and south a satire or anything of the sort so as for the retreat our forces have retreated to what russia believed to be their pre-war position was. those we've got in the european union and the international perception of the conflict the united states and the e.u. have been criticizing the russia for failing to complete them if that was a plan in addition the u.s.

senate that is simply stated that they be european parliament they believe that russia's actions in georgia have led to the occupation of the twenty percent of georgia's territory and as a liberal leader how do you feel about them phrase in a point. that's not. the visit but i think that as the liberal leader of a modern and developing russia i can only give one possible answer these statements are unfounded but they reflect the preferences of certain senior citizens in the senate who nonobjective reasons of align themselves with certain individuals that's completely up to them we are talking about a foreign parliament and i do not much care about how they phrase their statements my position is different it is embodied in the decrees i have signed over that difficult period which i will be frank with you although you may disagree i am not ashamed of having signed those decrees not only am i not ashamed i believe these decisions were much needed and they were right there was no other way to stop the

tragedy those decisions were very difficult to make. i realize what sort of repercussions they might bring i can tell you that i have had long discussions with my aides about these decrees and we saw no obvious solution to the crisis at first nevertheless i think the decisions i made were well thought out the essence of it was to recognize the territory as a subjects to international law so we could protect them. as for what that might bring a question that inevitably follows no one knows what you know i would be very happy if the georgian abkhazia and south etc and authorities went to the negotiating table to discuss how they would continue living side by side how peace and security could be enforced in a region where the future holds for their closely related peoples what they could create together i would be happy if it came to that russia would never obstruct such negotiations. well. we have talked about the reactions of the u.s.

senate and the european parliament let me now ask you about how our partners in our collective security treaty organization and c.i.s. reacted these are countries that call themselves russia's allies and partners they didn't support russia's actions and they did not recognize the breakaway republics how do you feel today when you discuss the matter with officials from these states . let me tell you how it went when the conflict broke out i called for a siesta. i spoke to my partners and i told them that i had to make a difficult decision i told them i did not expect anything from them i understood how hard it would be for them to make a decision of that sort i said a lot of you have territorial issues a lot of you have economic problems the world we live in is complicated and interdependent the decision we've made is final but that does not mean i'm asking you to recognize these new republics if you do recognize them it will be by your

own decision if you do not our position will not change now i may be a young man liberal president but i do have some experience and i realize that i would not find many supporters after having made that admission but that is another matter but that was it so. today there are no political forces in georgia who would accept the loss of our president south. and this means that even with those who will come after saakashvili russia will have fundamental differences . we have our differences of course they will be people we would be able to negotiate with i'm sure they will be willing to negotiate in spite of all possible disagreements. i guess what i'm curious continue to vote for the people currently in charge with the way the countries go now what would happen. say some unflattering words about saakashvili because unlike president sarkozy he does not

seem to be a person worthy of respect. but i could not insult toward the little people of georgia vote for certain people that is a choice made by the people of georgia we will respect that it would probably not have a very good effect on our relations i think we will respect the choice of the georgian people. just because you said that even in your close circles there were differences over whether to recognize a prize in south. there's a question both in russia and georgia since the end of the war russia has given forty billion global's in aids to applies in south attachment this is a huge amount of money that could have been used for russia's internally what does russia need this for. oh is that. we have a lot of programs to help and support other countries because we are in south a set here right now maybe closer to russia or in diplomatic terms they are

entirely dependent on those they are close to us and their own russian citizens living there now if we're providing aid to foreign citizens in foreign states then of course we're going to provide nearby independent territories with a large share of russian citizens this is normal that we used to help god knows who you know you know as if i knew and in soviet times i've also been in the studio the mission was a little less. but it was good having said that does russia believe an international tribunal should be founded do workings of events of august two thousand and eight will. i look at it as a lawyer i would look at them let us forget about saakashvili for a moment that if it's an international tribunal initiated by law now several states supported by the international community then there is no problem there but if the tribunals in question is an example of volunteerism but if its purpose is to resolve a political problem by removing a leader then i am against it that's the difference for at least the probably if an

international tribunal is called to judge the lead of following an international incident then such a tribe you know has the legal competence or the higher justice if you will to judge a head of state. but if the tribunals is only motivated by someone's going to change the political system of a state i would strongly disapprove. but with the. i think what happened there was a flagrant violation of international law. however it would not be possible to rely on russia's position alone in this matter so the creation of such a tribunal is impossible this means the conflict will ultimately be judged by history in the short term perspective the voters of georgia will have to decide which way the country should go. the question of russia's ascension to the world trade organization is very relevant this is the. russia wants to join the deadly chill chill once russia that's the problem as far as we understand is a georgia exporting russia session it's the only country that's not in favor of

russia's joining. it has been talk about georgia agreeing to agree to russia the session if russia lifts its embargo on the east coast of georgia and make some other concessions is russia willing to barter for it and what is your take on the prospect of russia's joining a bit of. that was very well put and one point i don't want to do is barter for it that would be a more moderate georgia has a position on russia's w t o a session we respect our position as we respect the stance of any of us over and state as long as that position is in line with the goal set out in the charter of trade trade preferences custom regimes are we ready to discuss at all the imports of wine and mineral water we will discuss anything but the problem is something else in essence our colleagues in georgia are trying to force a new edition of the political problem under the guise of w.

to go recession i'm referring to entry points control over the traffic of goods then they will want to get the e.u. involved our position on this is clear if you want information about the traffic of goods including transit through and south a sense here we will provide it why a modern electronic database. i've agreed to the suggestion is made by the swiss president regarding. and i recently discussed it with president obama well we're ready to implement the model that switzerland has proposed to wrestle however if they try to change current political reality yes they're serving it as a prerequisite for russia to go recession we won't fall for. recession is not too high a price to pay here. mr president i have a question about russian georgian relations but not the recent conflict some media have reported that the cia has confirmed georgia's version if all the women of the us embassy in illicit organize space russian special services as well as

a number of other bowman's in georgia some media have reported that someone is have confronted you about this can you confirm this. let me put this plainly there was a no head of state has said anything about this to make them to order might be upset about this but this subject is not on my agenda of negotiations with e.u. leaders it's just not the meat of the subject was painfully two thousand and eight because of a conflict with one but now it's off the agenda that there is one issue of the w t o recession which we're discussing mainly with the us and sometimes with e.u. representatives that's for the explosions the version you mentioned is pure provocative nonsense going for the i will ask you simple question why are you proud of what you did in two thousand and eight are you seem to do you suffer because of it you know that no out of three years have passed how would you describe your emotions or profits. but first if i will try to answer this i don't know if i can do it like a child ward but i will try i suffer to this day because of what happened then i am

convinced however that the decision to retaliate and the recognition of the breakaway republics as subjects to international law would be like decisions to make it i believe my actions were constitutional not only on my own ashamed of what i have done i believe my decisions were norful thought out and necessary looking thank you very much mr president to. bring you the latest in science and technology from the realms. we go into the future covered. in india all these.