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UNITED NATIONS -- In a very rare public rebuke, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has denied a claim by Georgia's UN ambassador that he amended a recent report in response to "Russian blackmail."
"The claim by the Georgian permanent representative that the secretary-general amended his report on Georgia in response to 'Russian blackmail' is categorically rejected. The statement itself is very unfortunate," UN spokeswoman Marie Okabe said.
Georgian UN envoy Alexander Lomaia said last week that Russia threatened to veto an upcoming Security Council resolution on revamping the UN mission in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia unless the title and content of Ban's report to the council were changed. Lomaia said "very reliable sources" told him that Ban's final report to the council "differed drastically from the original version" and that part of the pressure on the secretary-general came during a recent visit by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Russia's UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said he attended Lavrov's meeting with Ban and at "no stage of this discussion of the report [did] Russia ever threaten any kind of veto."
nIn Tbilisi, protesters demanding Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili's resignation beat several police officers and stabbed one with a knife on Thursday night, raising new fears that the protests could slide into violence.
UN Chief Rebukes Georgia
01 June 2009
The Associated Press
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