Russia-Georgia air links to resume, but storm clouds grow

AFP, March, 2008

MOSCOW (AFP) — Russian-Georgian relations were set for a symbolic thaw Tuesday with the first passenger flight in eighteen months between Tbilisi and Moscow, but tensions over Georgia's pro-Western course and NATO ambitions were only growing.

The Georgian Airlines flight across the Caucasus mountains to Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, with a return scheduled the same evening, was to be the first crack in an economic blockade imposed by the Kremlin in October 2006.

"The resumption of direct flights... is a positive step which Georgia welcomes sincerely. I hope it's a first but not a last step," Foreign Minister David Bakradze told AFP. "We also expect Russia to lift economic sanctions, visa and transport restrictions."

The air, land and sea embargo, as well as bans on Georgian imports, were a huge blow to the ex-Soviet republic of about five million people, whose biggest economic partner has always ...