United for Peace of Pierce County, WA - We nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than cooperative diplomacy.

On Friday, at almost the same time that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brandished an agreement newly signed by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi and said "Russian forces need to leave Georgia at once," a Russian military convoy advanced to within 55 kilometers of the Georgian capital, the Financial Times of London reported.[1] -- "It was the closest to Tbilisi Russian forces have come since the conflict erupted last week," Charles Clover said. -- "The tone and content of U.S. and European statements on the Russia-Georgia conflict have been subtly diverging all week," Clover observed, "with European nations such as France and Germany less inclined to isolate or punish Russia for its actions, while the U.S. has been the most openly confrontational." ...

TBILISI -- Tensions between Washington and Moscow took a new turn on Friday as Condoleezza Rice, U.S. secretary of state, called on Russian troops to withdraw from occupied areas in Georgia “immediately.” She made the call after Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgian president, signed a new ceasefire agreement with Russia.

Her call came as Nicolas Sarkozy, French president, spoke to Dmitry Medvedev, his Russian counterpart, who agreed to sign the accord and said that Moscow would “scrupulously” respect the elements of the agreement, “notably those concerning the withdrawal of Russian forces.” However, the French statement gave no indication of when Mr. Medvedev might sign the agreement.

Ms. Rice’s visit to Tbilisi capped a week that saw the brief Russia-Georgia conflict turn from a hot but localized war into a diplomatic confrontation between Moscow and Washington with Cold War overtones.

“Our most urgent task today is the immediate and orderly withdrawal of Russian armed forces and the return of those forces to Russia,” Ms. Rice said. “Russian forces need to leave Georgia at once.”

Stepping up the pressure on Moscow, the U.S. and Poland clinched a deal on Friday to base part of Washington’s planned anti-missile shield on Polish territory.

Russia responded angrily to the move. Anatoly Nogovitsin, the deputy head of the Russian armed forces, warned Poland that by hosting the shield it could become the target of a nuclear attack in wartime. “The U.S. is concerned with its own anti-missile defense, not Poland’s. But Poland, by deploying [the shield], will be exposed to attack.”

Russian troops, meanwhile, remained in the central town of Gori and other areas in Georgia such as the port of Poti, outside the separatist enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It was unclear on Friday night whether they planned to withdraw outside the “zone of conflict” as Ms. Rice warned them to.

A Reuters journalist reported seeing a Russian military convoy advance to the town of Igoeti, within 55km of Tbilisi, on Friday at almost the same time as the meeting between Ms Rice and Mr Saakashvili. It was the closest to Tbilisi Russian forces have come since the conflict erupted last week.

George W. Bush, U.S. president, accused Russia on Friday of “bullying and intimidation” and said contention with the U.S. was not in Russia’s interests. He warned Russia it faced isolation from the world community.

At the same time as Ms. Rice conferred with Mr. Saakashvili in Tbilisi, Angela Merkel, German chancellor, was holding talks with Mr. Medvedev in the Russian town of Sochi.

She criticized Russia in more muted tones than the U.S. has done. “Some of Russia’s actions were not proportionate,” said Mrs. Merkel. “Russian troops should withdraw from central areas in Georgia.”

Mr. Medvedev said the West should not contemplate sending peacekeepers to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, pointing to the earlier refusal of Kosovo separatists to accept U.N.-led peacekeepers. The people of the regions, he said, “do not trust anyone but the Russian troops . . . We are the only guarantors of stability in the region.”

The tone and content of U.S. and European statements on the Russia-Georgia conflict have been subtly diverging all week, with European nations such as France and Germany less inclined to isolate or punish Russia for its actions, while the U.S. has been the most openly confrontational.

The U.S. has floated the possibility of expelling Russia from the G8. The French foreign ministry said on Friday that it did not believe threats to exclude Russia from the G8 or other international organizations such as the United Nations would be constructive. “Our interests lie in maintaining dialogue with the Russians,” an official said.

German officials took a similar line although Eckart von Klaeden, a foreign policy expert in parliament and Merkel confidant, said Germany’s relationship with Russia “will hinge on its behavior in the coming days.”

Russia’s ministry of defense has denied accusations by a human rights group that it had dropped cluster bombs on Georgia during the conflict. Human Rights Watch, the New York-based monitoring group, said Russian aircraft dropped cluster bombs on two Georgian towns on August 12, killing three civilians and wounding five.

“We did not use cluster bombs, and this was not necessary,” he said on Friday.

In May 2008, 107 nations agreed to a total ban on cluster munitions, but Russia did not participate in the talks.

--Additional reporting by Peggy Hollinger in Paris and Bertrand Benoit in Berlin.