NATO Secretary General Jap de Hoop Scheffer said at the press conference that the NATO-Russia Council meetings would be "put on hold" until Russia adhered to the French-brokered peace plan. He also announced that the Western alliance would upgrade its relations with Georgia, establishing a NATO-Georgia Commission, a consultation mechanism similar to the one NATO already has with Ukraine.
"We are not closing doors, but we […] cannot continue with business as usual […] as long as Russia does not commit to the principles upon which we agreed to base our relationship," said the NATO chief.
US and Russia trade shots
US Secretary of State Condolleza Rice was more outspoken, calling Russia an "outlaw". Asked what action could be taken by the West if Russia does not comply with the peace plan, she said:
"Russia is very clearly isolating itself. It's becoming more and more the outlaw in this conflict. It is clearly in violation of a ceasefire agreement that it signed, signed willingly. Its forces are behaving in a wholly inappropriate fashion in a neighbouring state. It's been called to account by NATO, called to account by the European Union, and I think this is going to continue."
From Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov shot back, calling the declaration approved at the NATO meeting "unobjective and biased".
He accused NATO of trying to rescue what he called the "criminal regime" of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, a close Western ally who is pushing hard to win his country membership of the alliance.
"It appears to me that NATO is trying to portray the aggressor as the victim, to whitewash a criminal regime and to save a failing regime," Lavrov said.
The Russian minister also insisted that Moscow was not occupying Georgia and had no plans to annex the separatist region of South Ossetia.
Medvedev promises troops withdrawal
In the meantime, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued a fresh commitment to withdraw almost all Russian troops from Georgia before the weekend. In a telephone conversation with his French counterpart and current European Union President Nicolas Sarkozy, Medvedev vowed that all but 500 Russian troops would be pulled out of the former Soviet republic on 21 and 22 August. Under the ceasefire deal, combat troops must pull out but an unspecified number of soldiers can remain as "peacekeepers", although there is little clarity on their mandate or their scope of operations.
Russia rejects UN Resolution
In New York, France submitted a new draft resolution to the UN Security Council demanding full Russian compliance with the ceasefire, including a full troop withdrawal, but Russia said on Tuesday that this was not acceptable.
Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin, whose country is a veto-wielding member of the Security Council, made it clear that his delegation would not accept the text because it included only two of the six points listed in the peace deal brokered by Sarkozy.
