"When they needed my support on Iraq, I gave it…What happened here, this I cannot explain"

TBILISI, Georgia, November 27 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Resigned Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze regretted Washington’s betrayal in helping oust him despite his support to American foreign policy, particularly on Iraq.

Shevardnadze stressed that as a foreign minister of the former Soviet Union he largely contributed to safeguarding the world from the Cold War repercussions, reported the BBC News Online Thursday, November 27.

He made it clear that as president of Georgia, he was a good friend to the United States.

"When they needed my support on Iraq, I gave it," Shevardnadze recalled. "What happened here, this I cannot explain."

He suspected a foul play by U.S. ambassador Richard Miles, who was posted to Belgrade before the overthrow of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.

"In relation to the ambassador, I have serious... suspicions that this situation that happened in Tbilisi is an exact repetition of the events in Yugoslavia," Shevardnadze maintained. "Someone had a plan."

The main opposition leader, Mikhail Saakashvili, has admitted going to Belgrade earlier this year to study the events there three years ago and wanted to repeat them in Georgia.

Shevardnadze’s statements came as U.S. President George W Bush phoned acting president Nino Burjanadze to say he was sending a delegation "to assess Georgia's needs".

Bush reaffirmed to her a desire to help her democratic and free-market reforms.

Shevardnadze had left office after weeks of opposition protests against flawed elections led to a takeover of parliament last weekend.

"Everything was ready - the army, the internal troops, the police - but I looked at the huge crowd," he recalled.

"I saw in their faces it would be impossible to calm them, that they were not afraid of anything, and I knew there would be bloodshed.

"That morning I told my colleagues the only way out was my resignation."

He reiterated his conviction that the opposition was wrong to break into the country's parliament and that he declared a state of emergency because he saw a threat to the integrity of Georgia.