The New Nation - Internet Edition

Reuters, Baku

Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in ex-Soviet Azerbaijan on Wednesday for the first leg of a trip to show that Washington stands by its allies in the region after Russia's military intervention in Georgia.

As Cheney came into a region Russia sees as its backyard, the Kremlin renewed its rhetorical attacks on Washington, accusing it of helping to trigger the conflict by backing a pro-Western Georgian government bent on aggression. Azerbaijan and Georgia are links in the chain of a Western-backed energy corridor bypassing Russia which the West fears could be in jeopardy after the Kremlin last month sent troops and tanks deep into Georgian territory when Tbilisi tried to retake the separatist region of South Ossetia by force.

Cheney began his week-long trip in Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea, then heads to Georgia and from there to Kiev for meetings with Ukraine's pro-Western government, which like Tbilisi is defying Moscow by seeking membership of NATO.

"These are the three countries that are the most directly affected by Russian pressure at the moment," said Janusz Bugajski, director of the New European Democracies Project at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"It's also sending a regional signal that America hasn't walked away from the region," he said of Cheney's trip, which will round off with a visit to Italy.