Russia's Lavrov calls Georgia's Saakashvili 'ill-bred anomaly'

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is an ill-bred pathology and anomaly of the Georgian people, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday. "President Saakashvili is a pathology and anomaly of the Georgian people and, moreover, is ill-bred," Lavrov said during a meeting with his South Korean colleague, Kim Sung-Hwan, in Moscow. "But we, as President Medvedev earlier said, do not associate the Georgian people with this character...and are ready to develop business, [as well as] pragmatic and mutually beneficial contacts with Georgia." Last week, in an interview with Russian and Georgian media, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said he "will never forgive" Saakashvili for the deaths of Russian peacekeepers caught up in the Georgian-Russian conflict on August 8, 2008. Medvedev also said he would support the idea of an international tribunal for the Georgian president. Saakashvili's press service was quick to comment and said that Medvedev "justifies with cynicism ethnic cleansing and occupation that the Russian Federation carried against the Georgian nation." "It [Russian-Georgian war] is not over from the Russian side because I can practically say that Russia doesn't recognize the peace agreement and officially wants to overthrow our government," Saakashvili said on Monday in an interview with Russia's Ekho Moskvy radio station. Russia fought a brief war against Tbilisi's forces in August 2008 when Georgia tried to retake its breakaway region of South Ossetia by force. In the aftermath, it and nearby Abkhazia were recognized by Russia, although only a few other countries followed suit.