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| Cheney opens ex-Soviet state tour | Cheney opens ex-Soviet state tour |
| (10 minutes later) | |
| US Vice-President Dick Cheney is in Azerbaijan at the start of a tour of the region aimed at supporting US allies in the former Soviet Union. | |
| Mr Cheney will also visit Ukraine and then Georgia, a month after fighting erupted between Russia and Georgia in the breakaway region of South Ossetia. | Mr Cheney will also visit Ukraine and then Georgia, a month after fighting erupted between Russia and Georgia in the breakaway region of South Ossetia. |
| The trip is likely to infuriate Moscow, which sees those three states as part of its sphere of influence. | The trip is likely to infuriate Moscow, which sees those three states as part of its sphere of influence. |
| However, the US views them as key allies in Russia's backyard. | However, the US views them as key allies in Russia's backyard. |
| In Georgia, Mr Cheney will stress American support for President Mikhail Saakashvili - the man the Kremlin dismissed on Tuesday as a "political corpse", adding that it did not recognise his leadership. | |
| Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev has also accused the US of helping Tbilisi build its war machine and called on America to review its relations with the Georgian authorities. | |
| "Unfortunately, at a certain point they [the US] gave Saakashvili carte blanche for any actions, including military. All that was translated into aggression," Mr Medvedev told Italian television. | |
| Oil interests | |
| The Bush administration is expected to announce on Wednesday a $1bn (£563m) package of aid to help rebuild Georgia, an administration official told Reuters news agency. | |
| America's interest in the region has a lot to do with energy - and the Caspian oil which flows west down a pipeline from Azerbaijan, through Georgia and Turkey. | America's interest in the region has a lot to do with energy - and the Caspian oil which flows west down a pipeline from Azerbaijan, through Georgia and Turkey. |
| America fears instability in the region could threaten the pipeline and give Moscow even more influence over energy supplies to the West, says the BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Moscow. | |
| Fighting between Russia and Georgia began on 7 August after the Georgian military tried to retake the breakaway region of South Ossetia by force. | |
| Russian forces launched a counter-attack and the conflict ended with the ejection of Georgian troops from both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. | |
| Russia has since recognised the independence of both regions, though no other country has. |