U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is ending a 5-nation trip in central Europe and the southern Caucasus region with a stop in Georgia Monday. She is calling for an end to the Russian occupation of the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Clinton says the better relationship the Obama administration is forging with Moscow in its "re-set" of ties with Russia is beneficial to the former Soviet republics and allies she has visited on this trip.
But she is making no effort to conceal U.S. displeasure over Russia's continuing military presence in two breakaway regions of Georgia in violation of the truce accord that ended the 2008 Georgia-Russia war.
At a press event late Sunday in the Armenian capital Yerevan, she said the dispute with Russia on Georgia need not impede U.S.-Russian cooperation in other areas.
The top U.S. diplomat said, "No two nations agree on everything. We do not agree on what happened in Georgia or the current continuing occupation by Russian forces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. And we have said so, and I have said it everywhere, not just in the Caucasus. But we think it's possible to pursue a comprehensive common agenda, as we are doing with Russia, without the disagreement freezing our relationship."
South Ossetia and Abkhazia, heavily populated by ethnic Russians, have resisted integration with the rest of Georgia since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Clinton and other U.S. officials stress support for Georgia's territorial integrity and reject Moscow's recognition of the two entities, backed only by a small handful of other countries, as independent.
But there is no active international effort to return the two areas to the control of the Tbilisi government.
U.S. officials say that by pressing reforms and economic growth in Georgia, the populations of the breakaway areas will eventually come to see the advantages of aligning with the central government.
Secretary Clinton is due to meet President Mikhail Saakashvili, opposition politicians and members of Georgian civil society organizations in a stay in Tbilisi lasting only about six hours.
She has visited Ukraine, Poland, Azerbaijan and Armenia in the 5-day trip. She is due back in Washington early Tuesday to be able take part in the White House visit that day by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
