15 September 2009, 22:10
"Russian Newsweek": report of European commission on war in South Ossetia can be made secret
The special European commission set up for investigating into the circumstances of the last year's August conflict in the Caucasus plans to disclose the results of its studies quite soon. However, now, 9 months later, during which the commission has spent 1.6 million euros, there is a probability that the report will be made classified, the "Russian Newsweek" writes with reference to "well-informed sources."
Let us remind you that the International Commission of the European Union (ICEU), which tries to find out who had begun the war in South Ossetia - Georgia or Russia - plans to announce its conclusions in the end of September. This was stated in the end of July by German diplomat Uve Schramm, deputy head of the ICEU.
The commission was due to publish the results of its investigation two months ago, but the process has protracted. The "Russian Newsweek" explains it by the fact that in the end of July Georgia and Russia overwhelmed the commission with new proofs of their rightness; and European experts had not enough time to process all that.
The members of the commission are bound by the contract, which prescribes not to communicate with journalists. Besides, no expert knows the conclusions of the final version of the document: each of them writes his or her chapter only.
Alexei Makarkin, deputy director of the Centre of Political Technologies, is sure that actually the commission was engaged in correcting its formulations, in order to make the report less explosive. "Europeans wouldn't like to isolate Russia and won't clap the door before Saakashvili's nose. Therefore, they've taken a time-out to find some compromise," said the political scientist.
Sergey Markov, a deputy of the Russian State Duma and a member of the Russian delegation at the PACE, sticks to another opinion: it took Europeans two months for "censoring, distorting or totally castrating the truthful document."
