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a. quick look now at the main stories we're covering today are to drop stock at the peril of the sheryl slide continues as europe's markets open following a similar grim trading in asia and on wall street but spurred by a gloomy u.s. economic outlook and euro zone debt. president medvedev is urging a syria's leader to start reforms and talks with the opposition or expect a sad future protestors reject president assad's offer of change as a tax increase on their stronghold. hardline muslims in britain are trying to put london. under strict sharia law but critics say it's

a political tool to try and split the country. and next on the eve of the third anniversary of the south of such and war president medvedev talks to russian and georgian media about actions and consequences that's coming right up. mr president thank you very much for agreeing to answer our questions let us go back to the events of two thousand and eight maignan you met with the georgian president mikheil saakashvili and there was an impression at that point both in billy's here and in moscow that we had arrived at some sort of an accord and the dispute would not be allowed to go into an armed conflict would you tell us whether you managed to agree on anything with the georgian president about that. catherine i had the same impression of the time 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 at the moment georgia is at odds with these unrecognized states but i can assure you that as a newly elected president of russia i shall do everything in my capacity to help you find some compromise solutions that would accommodate everyone and would eventually facilitate the reintegration of georgian territory if that's acceptable for all the parties in a cage a negotiation naturally this is what i told him a 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 as they would be dubbed. 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 condi rice 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 who is meant to urge president saakashvili into war. almost no 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 american said george is 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 apparent 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 from the white house this is a phrase they often repeat when emma lies 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 georgian 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 that that was when they came up with a plan for the military gamble which ensured in august two thousand and eight. mr

president the war represents if 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 failed to do in order to prevent the war. i can tell you frankly had i realized back in july two thousand and eight that mr saakashvili 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 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 realized

that by unleashing this war. personally devoted his country to destruction and that is the scariest part both for him and for the georgian people. rush in forces reached. 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 had unleashed besides i'm neither a judge nor an executioner i'd like to stress once again that it's up to the people of georgia to assess and decide his fate through a democratic vote well maybe they could also use other means the way it sometimes happens in history but. 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. one more question in here are they still believe that

the initial response was legitimate self-defense the further actions of the russian troops were excessive why wasn't it an option to push the georgian forces out of the set and stop at that point. you know sophie people are free to make speculation like that and i have come across the many times trying putting yourself in the shoes of russia's commander in chief my shoes that he is sure we could have merely forced them out and stopped there but what we're hearing from georgia. back to our initial position and our american friends and their allies will. get on your aircraft and what not and then we should resume the same offensive with renewed vigor. with letting them do that 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. 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 gadhafi in libya and here it is imposing sanctions against syria. 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 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 we're not. taking any part in the military campaign reza few nations are attempting to instill order in libya through 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 libya is still in one piece such a risk does exist for libya but so far the parties in the conflict 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. 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 but gadhafi 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 concern and 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 fate and we will eventually have to take some decisions on syria to truly we've been watching developments very attentively the situation is changing and so we're really active. let us look at some of the numbers in the wake of the war and voices there and the representatives of the fact

a government i did the fighting incident involved had claimed like two thousand lives that was the number that was announced later on russia's investigative committee estimated the casualties at no more than one hundred people. while that it was in this village hall of two thousand that that had served as one of the main reasons paunch and the so-called peace enforcement operation but how do you account for this discrepancy now. i have explained by rationale for taking. the cajuns you see i didn't get any figures for location this isn't exactly a case for mathematics let me remind you what was going on there. between august the seventh and 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 completely down i told the minister we should check this. completely out of his mind maybe it's just a provocative act maybe he stress test set eons trying to send us some kind of message and i will later minister reported to me this is no bluff. and they're using grad rocket launchers and whatnot 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 what was i supposed to do i said return fire and shoot to kill no figures had been announced at that point fortunately such situations are always about instant situation and instant decisions and difficult ones too i can tell you that was the hardest night of my

life casualty estimates started coming in later and they did divergent deed and they still do i'm not a detective nor a forensic expert i don't perform exhumations. and 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 one hundred fifty doesn't even qualify as casualties. mr president you said you gave the order to return fire operation continued after that heavy weapons rolled in and the 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. 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 involves 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 and i do understand it's not very appropriate to discuss matters like this by cell phone and it's also a lot of trouble to establish a secure line with someone who's in a different country we talked and then 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 in gauging conflict security council members voiced their support for my decision sometime later we had the meeting in which mr putin attended in relation to this we have to mention mr sarkozy who was at the time chairman of the new i can't talk about him without a smile unlike the other president we discussed today because i like him. i see

according to some who persuaded you to halt the russian forces march towards tbilisi. of course not no head of state is capable of talking another head of state into anything look at the world trying to talk a daffy into giving up have they persuaded him to do anything you know and i don't think they will but 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 at that time aimed at two breakaway territories and regrettably at our citizens what he did was very kind 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 e.u. i could come over to discuss the incident but 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 and

he told me i understand and i agree 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 i told him let's put a plan together plan with. the ceasefire. i told him he could take the plan to georgia the best thing about what he did with probably that he had the courage to come to russia at a time when literally everyone was talking about what we had done he was brave enough to go on to georgia with our initiatives and he gonna dissatisfactory reaction from the georgian authorities. president really first and foremost. that was his contribution to the diplomatic corps that helped solve the conflict that wasn't in the west recognizing up. is not in accordance with the spirit of the peace treaty the middle aged sarkozy plan which at the end of the war called for the return of the armed forces to the pre-war positions russia though recognized

the sovereignty of this republic and kept its armed forces in the region right now there are russian military bases in south says how did sarkozy the co-author of the plan react to this so 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 latter of course i can tell you that he several other e.u. representatives disapproved of the decision they told us we were creating problems for ourselves i heard them but pleasing our partners in my priority when i made this decision. as for the medvedev plan it was not about the breakaway republic the plan was aimed at stopping the war but saakashvili has undertaken had caused in that sense it was a complete success russia's position on that is quite simple. and it was successful i consider all other. the events to be wrong.

but french officials prime minister few know i'm recently president sarkozy have said they were still waiting for president medvedev to complete. a plan. 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. plan the plan said nothing about russia not recognizing a south a satire or anything of the sort as for the retreat our forces have retreated to what russia believes to be their pre-war position which. regarding the european union and the international perception of the conflict the united states and the e.u. have been criticizing russia for failing to complete them invaded said of course the plan in the edition the us senate there is simply stated like the european parliament they believe that russia's actions in georgia have led to the occupation

of the twenty percent of georgia's territory as a liberal leader how do you feel about them phrasing it. i think that as the liberal leader of a modern and developing russia i can only give one possible answer these statements are unfounded they reflect the preferences of certain senior citizens in the senate who due to nonobjective reasons have aligned 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've 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 up so 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 recognise the territories of subjects to international law so we could protect them as for what that might bring a question that inevitably follows no one knows you know i would be very happy if the georgian abkhazia and south of thirty an authority is went to the negotiating table to discuss how they would continue living side by side how peace and security could be enforced in the region what 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. 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 the states. let me tell you how it went when the conflict broke out i called for a c.s. meeting i spoke to my partner 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 in 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. today there are no political forces in georgia who would accept the loss of our pleasant south. and this means that even with those who will come after saakashvili russia will have fundamental differences . we have our differences of course but 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. what europeans continue to vote for the people currently in charge with the way the countries go now what will 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 the. people of georgia vote for

a certain because 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 respect the choice of the people. you've said that even in your close circles there were differences over whether to recognize a pardon south of setia there's a question both in russia and georgia since the end of the war russia has given forty. two applies in south. this is a huge amount of money that could have been used for russia's internally what does russia need this for. we have a lot of programs to help and support other countries. and south of setia right now maybe closer to russia in diplomatic terms they are entirely dependent on those that are close to us and the 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 aerators with a large share of russian citizens this is normal when used to how god knows who you know. times. having said that does russia believe an international tribunal should be founded to look into the events of august two thousand and eight but. i look at it as a let us forget about saakashvili for a moment if it's an international tribunal initiated by one several states supported by the international community then there is no problem with that but if the tribunal in question is an example of volunteerism if its purpose is to resolve a political problem by removing a leader then i am against it that's the difference but if an international tribunal is called to judge a leader following an international incident then such

a tribe you know has the legal competence the higher justice if you will to judge a head of state. but if the tribunals only motivated by someone's going to change the political system of the state i would strongly disapprove. i think what happened 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 shorter term perspective the voters of georgia who will have to decide which way the country should go. the question of russia's a session to the world trade organization is very relevant. russia wants to join with. russia the problem as far as we understand is that russia is a session it's the only country that's not in favor of russia's joining. us there

has been talk about george here agreeing to agree to russia's a session if russia lifts its embargo on the imports of georgia and make some other concessions is russia willing to barter for it and what is your take on the prospect of russia. that was very well. i don't want to do it that would be a. georgia has a position on russia's session we respect that position as we respect the. state as long as that position is in line with the goal set out in the charter trade trade preferences custom regimes we're ready to discuss the importance of wine and mineral water. 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 a session i'm referring to entry point 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 including transit. we will provide it via a modern electronic database i've agreed to the suggestions made by the swiss president. and i recently discussed it with president obama well we're ready to implement the model that switzerland has proposed to us however if they try to change current political reality yes they're serving it as a prerequisite for russia to have a session we won't fall for that. 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 of woman of the us embassy in berlin organized russian special services as well as a number of other bowman's in georgia some media have reported that some wild leaders have confronted you can you confirm this. let me put this plainly

no head of state has said anything about this to me georgia might be upset about this but this subject is not on my agenda of negotiations with e.u. leaders it's just not there the subject was painfully two thousand and eight because of the conflict but now it's off the agenda there is one issue wanted to w.t.f. recession which we're discussing mainly with the us but sometimes with e.u. representatives as for the explosions the version you mentioned is pure provocative and. i will ask you a simple question are you proud of what you did in two thousand and eight are you ashamed do you suffer because of it. you know that three years have passed how would you describe your emotions. 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.