EU monitors to deploy in Georgia

2008-10-01 09:44

Tbilisi - European Union monitors were to begin deploying in Georgia on Wednesday to monitor a ceasefire and oversee a Russian troop pull-back after the August war in the Caucasus state.

Monitors were to deploy from regional field offices in central and western parts of the country about 08:30 (04:30 GMT), the EU said.

The so-called European Union Monitoring Mission - comprising at least 200 people - aims to stabilise the region and ensure compliance by Georgia and Russia with an EU-brokered peace plan.

Many of the EU observers have a police or military background. They include a large contingent of French gendarmes, while others are experts in human rights and judicial issues. All will be unarmed, although they will have protective equipment including armoured cars.

On a visit to Tbilisi on Tuesday, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the bloc expects Russia to respect the peace plan and pull its troops by an October 10 deadline.

"I am optimistic that all the parties will comply, as we have done, to the terms of the agreement," Solana said.

"The objective of this mission is to allow Russian forces to withdraw," Solana said

Moscow said on Tuesday that the EU monitors would not immediately enter a Russian-controlled "buffer zone" around the breakaway region of South Ossetia when the mission begins.

The monitors would patrol "up to the southern limit of the security zone" under an EU-Russia deal reached on Tuesday, Interfax news agency quoted Vitaly Manushko, spokesman for Russian forces in South Ossetia, as saying.

Solana said the EU anticipates a "phase-by-phase" deployment of the monitors.

Months of mounting tensions erupted into full-scale hostilities between Georgia and Russia in early August over the Moscow-backed rebel province of South Ossetia.

Moscow said it was protecting Russian citizens in the region from Georgian aggression, but Tbilisi accused Moscow of provoking the conflict in order to cement its control over the region and destabilise Georgia.

Drawing widespread international condemnation, Moscow subsequently recognised South Ossetia and another rebel Georgian region, Abkhazia, as independent states.

Under the peace plan brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy on the EU's behalf, Russia is due to draw back its troops from "buffer zones" around the rebel regions into the regions themselves by October 10.

- SAPA