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Last Updated: Oct 28th, 2008 - 17:57:18 |
TBILISI (Reuters) - EU ceasefire monitors will not enter a Russian-declared "security zone" in Georgia on Wednesday, Russian officials said on Tuesday, and Georgia accused Moscow of stalling a promised troop pullback.
Russia said it was not blocking the deployment of the European Union monitors as originally planned, but the delay highlighted loopholes in a French-brokered ceasefire deal that some observers warn could lead to fresh flare-ups between Russia and Georgia.
After crushing Georgian forces in a brief war last month, Russia established buffer zones on Georgian territory adjoining South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two pro-Russian rebel regions of Georgia that Moscow has now recognized as independent states.
Under the pullback deal brokered by France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, the troops should withdraw from the zones by October 10, after the deployment of EU monitors which had been scheduled to begin on Wednesday.
But the Russian military said a technical agreement on access for the monitors to the zone adjacent to South Ossetia had not yet been finalized.
"From tomorrow, representatives of the European Union will begin conducting monitoring up to the southern borders of the security zone," Vitaly Manushko, spokesman for Russian peacekeepers around South Ossetia.
A source in the Russian Defense Ministry denied Russia was hindering the deployment of the EU force. "This decision does not mean any ban on monitoring by the EU representatives in the buffer zone itself," the source said.
"But at this moment details of such monitoring have not been agreed, therefore the decision on when it will start will be taken later," he said.
Russian forces pushed deep inside Georgia -- a former Soviet republic and important transit state for oil and gas supplies from the Caspian Sea -- in August, after repelling an offensive by Tbilisi to retake South Ossetia from pro-Moscow separatists.
The war severely damaged relations between Moscow and the West, but drew no direct sanctions.
CLOCK TICKING
Georgia, an ally of the United States that has angered Moscow by setting its sights on NATO membership, said Russia was trying to "raise the political price of their pullout."
"They will do everything they can to prolong this process," National Security Council secretary Kakha Lomaia told Reuters. "The watch will start ticking on October 1 and stop on October 10."
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, visiting Tbilisi, said in response to the Russian comments he was "optimistic that all parties will comply with the agreement that was signed."
He told a news conference later: "I think that we are going to try to begin tomorrow. We have to arrange with the commander of the Russian forces the manner in which this is going to be done. It's not going to be done in 24 hours."
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili told the news conference: "We will not be happy until the last Russian soldier gets out of my country."
The EU mission played down the significance of the delay in access to the security zone.
"The idea was never for the Russians to completely withdraw by October 1," an EU official said on condition of anonymity. "We'll give them time to pack up and go back. We never expected to be running around the security zone from the 1st."
In Brussels, a European Commission spokeswoman said the EU would host a donors' conference for Georgia on October 22.
The Commission said this month it would provide Georgia with up to 500 million euros ($716 million) by 2010 to aid its recovery and hoped it would be matched by EU member states.
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