now it's two thirty pm on friday here in moscow you with a recap of the top stories now dropped stock. continues europe's markets open down following similar grim trading in asia and wall street. gloomy u.s. economic outlook deepening the eurozone. president is serious a leader to start reforms on talks with the opposition or expect the sad future of the protesters a reject the president assad's offer of change as

a tax increase on the strong. muslims in britain trying to put london under strict sharia lol critics say it's a political tool to try and split the country. for the third anniversary of the south a second war president talks to russian and georgian media about actions and consequences. i said russia mr president thank you very much for agreeing to answer our questions then let us go back to the events of two thousand and eight back then you met with the georgian president mikheil saakashvili your meeting took place in st petersburg and there was an impression that points both into k.c. and in moscow that we had arrived at some sort of an accord and the dispute should not be allowed to pile over into an armed conflict and i reiterate that it's feelings i think both in moscow and it's d.c. thank you task that he managed to agree on anything with the georgian president back then to how many of course 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 instant petersburg we met in the constantine palace and mr secretary arrived i told him literally a little bit you know there are many problems in the region at the moment georgia is of 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 him find some compromise solution that would accommodate everyone and would eventually facilitate a reintegration of georgian territory that's acceptable for all the parties in age a negotiation naturally couples but this is what i told it word for word and his response was sort 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 georgetown 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 soviets people are options 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 lisa rice still flying 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's a visit by the u.s. secretary of state so it was meant to urge president saakashvili. if you think the united states was deliberately encouraging georgia to pursue a conflict with almost no i don't think so the united states is a very large country headed by pragmatic people but in politics connotations a nuance is a very important as it is i don't believe the americans have heard georgia's

president to reinvade 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 us president our phone conversation and then our first of the meetings. that there was no green light from the white house this is a phrase they often repeat when analyzing the war of two thousand and eight in must begin greenlighted i washington or 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 with but we can make an analysis of my jordan counterpart ceased all communication with us following the visit by khan to 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 all this in any case mr president war represents a failure of diplomacy and looking back at the situation three years later what would you have done differently what is it that russia fails to kill. in order to prevent the war was along i can tell you frankly that i realized back in july two thousand and eight that mr saakashvili was nurturing such plans in his inflamed car and 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 it 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 saakashvili had personally devoted his country to destruction and that is the scariest part both for him and for the georgian people . writing the question forces reached lisi boy 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 hope the invasion that saakashvili had unleashed would decides 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 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 opposing 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. well look one more question in here open they still believe that while the russians initial response was legitimate defense the further actions of the russian troops where excessive why wasn't this an option to push the georgian forces out of the city at and stop at that point to think. you know sophie people are free to make speculation like that all that was what i have come across the many times try putting yourself in the shoes of russia's commander in chief my shoes that i'm sure sure we could have nearly forced them out and stop there but what we're hearing from georgia and yes when we should fall back to our initial position and our american friends and that allies will call it was really our get our you aircraft and what not and then we should resume the same offensive with renewed vigor the world was letting them do vastly 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 that it wouldn't be able to target civilians i have settled. on the russian federation because as you know like it's all mixed bag good luck. well let me fill that up on a little bit. surprised us that you were referring to the piece in foursomes operation and i keep thinking back to today near syria when do you consider it acceptable to. what's the rationale for deciding whether it's ok to launch a piece of it was when we should go back there is russia billion to gadhafi in libya and here it is imposing sanctions against syria how do you accommodate your decisions on georgia batman and russia's stance on today's prizes ocean. you see alexey it's always case by case i don't know 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 when i. taking any part in the military campaign reza few nations are attempting to instill order through military means we don't think it's the point thing to do but there is one nuance you should keep in mind i think georgia had been split into three parts by the time of your with that which should have been about pulling the country back together for them rather than merely restoring constitutional order i don't read libya is still in one piece such a risk does exist for libya but so far the parties in a conflict or anything the so-called rebels in the program daffy forces have pledged that 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 or some of us i think what about

syria and that syria syria is a more complex issue but sadly their situation has been unfolding in a very dramatic way so far cradle bush and there might all of us practical politician should keep a close watch on the developments in that country and you could get daffy for one had issued unequivocal orders to slaughter opposition activists by contrast syria's president never ordered anything like that one fortunately people are dying in syria in grave numbers it is it i'm not around it is our deepest concern that therefore in my discussions with president assad during our personal conversation was planted in our correspondence i have been advocating one principle idea that he should immediately launch reforms reconcile with the opposition restore civil authority and start developing a modern state should he fail to do that he's in for a grim faced with 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 obviously actives on the minutes that's that's the crux of this is look at some of the numbers in the wake of the. warrantee thousand and eight russian envoys and the representatives of south us that is de facto government argued that the fighting in sin valley had claimed two thousand lives that was the number that was the now that's later on russia's investigative committee estimate of the casualties at no more than one hundred fifty people meanwhile it was this alleged toll of two thousand and thirteen some of the main reasons for not showing the so-called peace enforcement operation how do you account for this discrepancy now is yes that's three years after that i will. look at me more the linkage with so for me i have explained by rationale for taking last position i would not receive cajuns you see i didn't go get any figures for the explosion this isn't exactly a place for mathematics ignore the west let me remind you what was going on where is the book on the night between august the seventh because the eighth i received

a phone call from the defense minister i was on vacation of the line sailing down the volga river and the whole world was looking forward to the olympics that were about to take off in china let minister told me that georgia had launched a full scale combat operation look at the almost my initial reaction was from people down sources that i told the minister we should check this but in the sack is really completely out of his mind maybe it's just a provocative act they say the stress test blow your settings so you try to send us some kind of message and i will later you minister reported to me real betty this is no bluff they've only got until i was artillery barrage which are they using grad rocket launchers and whatnot i said all right i'll wait for another update even some more time to pass 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 have been announced at that point

if you go to unfortunately such situations are always about instant situation reports and instant decisions and difficult with ones to which unfortunately i can tell you that was the hardest night of my life. casualty yes i just started coming in later i mean just like that i did diverging they don't they still do i'm not a detective nor a forensic expert i don't perform exhumations are set in friends and colleagues tell us that many bodies were buried back atcha and remain missing to establish what i mean while jordan analysts present different estimates was that you know we can't use this kind of logic two thousand lives are serious enough that the one hundred fifty doesn't even have i find it's tragic that the sexually what was called the little door that. mr president you said you give the order to return fire that are the operation continued after that and 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 answered who called whom first did you call prime minister putin in the

first or did he call you how did you and the prime minister called need to move. i mean one listener so the first time i contacted hilda conflicts just was about twenty four hours after it had broken out the motor was involved was already ablaze what a waste of putin just made a statement condemning tbilisi's move your path was the right thing to do of course but as we spoke twenty four hours after the attack over a century ago it was hard to understand it's not very appropriate to discuss matters like this by self-interest it's also a lot of trouble to establish a secure line with someone who is in a different country that we taught shortly we're talking a little when he came back i mean even before his return i called a meeting of the security council which i explained my position my decision to return fire and then gave the conflict to the security council members voiced their support for my decision that will sometime later we had the meeting in sochi which mr putin attended with us in relation to this we have to mention mr sarkozy who was at the time chairman of the european union you know what it is that i can't talk

about him without a smile unlike the other president we discussed today because i like him you know yes. i see according to some it was sarkozy who persuaded you to follow the russian forces march towards d.c. with. that in the stomach of course not but no head of state is capable of talking another head of state into anything look at the world trying to talk him down the road to getting out of they persuaded him to do anything you know and i don't think they will actually he would sooner die in his bunker let me stress this again taking cities was never our goal our goal was to stop and i want to sheen which was at the time aimed at two breakaway territories and regrettably at our citizens what he did was very kind of 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 and then he told me i'm currently chairing the e.u. i could come over to discuss the incident but it'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 him what he told me i understand and i agree. some things i will be able to say in public or some i won't but regardless of that i did want to have a part in stopping this conflict i told him all right let's put a plan together that plan was later called. the ceasefire. i told him he could take the plan to georgia the best thing about what he did and 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 into georgia with our initiatives and he garnered a satisfactory reaction play a little more authority. president circus really first and foremost that's that was his contribution to the diplomatic corps that helped solve the conflict look at it . in the west it's recognizing up hydrogen sulfide says yes this is not in accordance with the spirit of the peace treaty we need sarkozy plan which at the

end of the war called for the return of the armed forces to the point of war positions by russia though his arrest the sovereignty of this republic and kept its armed forces in the region right now there are russian military bases in every president's office says yeah how did sarkozy coauthor of the plan react to this of so that i can say that i never discussed the matter with him he did not come to moscow to discuss you happy he was never involved in author of course i can tell you that he knew several other e.u. representatives disapproved of the decision but they told us we were creating problems for ourselves i heard them with pleasing our partners you know not my priority when i made this decision. and as for the medvedev sarkozy plan it was not about the breakaway republics your plan was aimed at stopping the war but billy's going to take it and had caused in that sense it was a complete success russia's position on the back is quite simple the problem maybe the plan both carried out and it was successful i consider all other

interpretations of the events to be run. across the. french officials right musical you. and recently president sarkozy have said you are still waiting for the present negativity from. what i want. i can tell you one thing that france has its own position and so does the e.u. with 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 mill yet of sarkozy plan a plan said nothing about russia not recognizing on the cards and south the thirtieth or anything of the sort as for the retreat our forces have retreated to what russia believes to be their korean war position which. so doesn't have to say also regarding the e.u. and international perception of the conflict and us and when you think criticizing russia failing to complete mitigate of stucco is the plan in addition the us senate recently stated that it's like the european parliament they believe that russia's

actions in georgia have led to the occupation twenty percent of georgia territory is a liberal leader how do you feel about them phrasing it that way parts of the second set of. the most on what does it look like 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 have juvenile objective reasons of align themselves with certain individuals that's completely up to them but we are talking about a foreign a 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 it's 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 yet the essence of it was to recognise the territories as 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 i were georgian abkhazia and south setian authorities 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 or 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. what we have talked about the reactions of the u.s. senate and the european parliament was you know ask you about how our partners in

the collective security treaty organization and c.i.s. reacted not a single member of the c.s.t. oh yes or the shanghai cooperation organization supported russia's actions he's our country is that full of themselves russia's allies and partners and it didn't support russia's actions and they did not recognize the great wherewithal it but i do feel today when you discuss the matter with officials from distinct solution. 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 but 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 but the world we live in is complicated and or dependent clause 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 cannot 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 nagel admission but that is another matter but that was it ok. today there are no political forces in georgia who would accept the loss of south ossetia and this means that even with those who will come after saakashvili russia will have fundamental differences that is the lesser will we have our differences of course but they will be people we will be able to negotiate with i'm sure they will be willing to negotiate in spite of all possible disagreements. continue to vote for the people currently in charge for the way the country is going now that's what happened there go to the floor where you 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 toward the little people of

georgia vote for a certain defeat because that is a choice made by the people my daughter we will respect that it would probably not have a very good effect on our relations but we will respect the choice of the georgian people. and we're still. with. that even in your close circles there were differences over whether to recognize applies in south ossetia is a question both in russia and georgia since the end of the war russia has given forty billion rubles an age to apprise in south with such a this is a huge amount of money that could have been used for russia's internally what does russia need this war. oh is that well let's just that we have a lot of programs to help and support other countries because here in south a set here right now maybe he's closer to russia or in diplomatic terms they are entirely dependent on those they 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 we used to how god knows who united you know in soviet times in the studio pretty. well but it was good enough having said that does russia believe an international tribunal should be founded to look into the events of the august two thousand and eight but. i look at it as a lawyer i would look at them let us forget about saakashvili for a moment if it's an international tribunal initiated by one of several states supported by the international community then there is no problem there but if the tribunal in question is an example of voluntourism 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 report 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 is only motivated by someone's going to change the political system of a state i strongly disapprove. it with a. 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 on this matter so the creation of such a tribunal is impossible but this means the conflict will ultimately be judged by history going to short term perspective the voters of georgia will have to decide which way the country should go i don't want anything on the question of russia's accession to the world trade organization is very relevant these days russia into the w.t.f. the w.c. you know wants russia the problem as far as we understand is that george is blocking russia's accession it is the only country that's not in favor of russia joining the w.c.s. yes there's been talk about georgia agreeing to agree to russia's expression if

russia lifts its embargo on the imported georgian goods to make some other concessions is russia willing to ask for it and what is your take on the prospect of russia joining. us and that was very well put one but i don't want to do it carter for it that would be your morals the american order has a position on russia's w t o a session we respect that position as we respect this no i says that any other sovereign state as long as that position is in line with the goal set out in the w t o's charter trade some trade preferences custom regimes we're ready to discuss it all the important wine and mineral water we think that it's a little but the problem is something else in essence our colleagues in georgia trying to force a new edition of the political problem just under the guise of w. to go recession i'm referring to entry point control over the traffic of goods stippling it when they want to get the e.u. involved russia our position on this is clear if you want information about the

traffic or goods including transit through abkhazia and south a sense here we will provide it by a modern electronic database i've agreed to the suggestion was made by the swiss president that's going to go there. and i recently discussed it with president obama you know what we're ready to air tonight the model that switzerland has proposed to wrestle with or whatever if they try to change her into a little reality yes that with them serving as a prerequisite for russia dominating over session that we won't fall for that. recession is not too high a price to pay and that. i have a question about russian georgian relations because not the recent conflict some media have reported that the cia has confirmed georgia's version about the bombing at the u.s. embassy in tbilisi he organized by russian special services as well as a number of other bombings in georgia some media have reported that some world leaders have confronted you about this can you confirm this that i was here and the

idea of leader let me put this plainly resolutely no head of state has said anything about this to me because he thought there 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 painful in two thousand and eight because of the conflicts last night with them but now it's off the agenda there is one issue what it is what the w.t.f. recession which we're discussing mainly with the us and sometimes with e.u. representatives as for the explosions the version you mentioned is pure provocative of good but also alaska's simple question are you proud of what you didn't is not an age you ashamed to suffer because of it you know that three years have passed how would you describe your emotions and what's the 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 the decision to retaliate and the recognition of the breakaway republics and subjects to international law but with my decisions to make it i

believe my actions were constitutional not only are my own ashamed of what i have done i believe my decisions were north thought out and necessary things. thank you very much mr president. we'll. bring you the latest in science and technology from around for sure. we've got the future covered hungry for the full story we've got it from. the biggest issues get the human voice face to face with the news makers on the t.v. . in india oh she's available in the movie joy she.