that is just total bunk mr saakashvili generally does a lot of talking and he often loses control of what he's saying there were no discussions of the kind i would know as i've been part of the government for over ten years that's number one and secondly conflicts are no good for anyone ever those who say you can resolve something through violence are liars and conflicts have never resulted in anything good if we had managed to prevent this war it would have been to everyone's benefit and georgia's in the first place the fact that it didn't happen is a real tragedy and in my opinion only one person is responsible for this it's just the way governments function and that man is the president of georgia. but. 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 in a different way what is it that russia failed to do 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

i can tell you frankly how do i realized back in july two thousand and eight that mr saakashvili was nurturing such plans in his inflamed hind 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 it 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 . russian forces reached p.c. . i believe that the peace enforcement operation which took five days was a mission accomplished our mis

mr president am i correct to assume that the way you see that visit by the u.s. secretary of state was meant to urge president saakashvili. do 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 american said 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 also some meetings at the. one world question in hero but they still believe that well why should the initial response was legiti

impression at 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 little 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 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 and gauge a negotiation naturally couples but this is what i told her word for word and his response was spot of course we are ready to cooperate and i also have this impression where 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 no way. the same time georgia was getting more and more visits from envoys from across the