EU-Russia treaty talks risk long delay
PHILIPPA RUNNER
09.10.2008 @ 09:18 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Negotiations on a new EU-Russia treaty could be held up despite Russia's pull-back from Georgia "buffer zones" on Wednesday (8 October), with Lithuania pushing for Russian troop scale-back in South Ossetia and Abkhazia also before talks restart.
"[Lithuania] wants the EU to respect the agreements created by Sarkozy," an EU diplomat told EUobserver. "It is hoping for the company of other new EU member states, the Nordic countries and London."
Russian soldiers in Georgia - how far back is far enough? (Photo: mid.ru)
Russian soldiers on Wednesday left two seven-kilometre-wide strips of land surrounding the Georgia breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, in compliance with a peace deal between Russia and Georgia brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy on 8 September.
But Lithuania wants Russia to also respect the earlier Moscow-Tbilisi-Paris peace accord of 12 August, under which "Russian armed forces will be pulled back to the line preceding the start of hostilities."
Russia kept around 2,500 soldiers in South Ossetia and Abkhazia prior to the conflict. But it has since pledged to station 7,600 troops in the two territories for an indefinite period of time and recognised the rebel enclaves as independent states.
The prospect of restarting negotiations on a new EU-Russia "partnership agreement" will come up for debate at an EU foreign ministers meeting on 13 October and the EU summit two days later.
EU leaders froze the partnership talks on 1 September in a mini-sanction against Russia's invasion of Georgia. The EU is also awaiting a comprehensive "audit" of EU-Russia relations ahead of an EU-Russia summit in November.
But Lithuania's hard line on fulfilling the 12 August peace accord runs counter to expectations in Paris and Moscow.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon and Russian ambassador to the EU Vladimir Chizhov in recent weeks both said they think EU-Russia negotiations will resume in October, without making reference to troop levels inside the rebel-held zones.
President Sarkozy speaking at a think-tank event in Evian, France, on Wednesday welcomed the Russian buffer zone withdrawal, saying President Medvedev had "kept his word."
The French leader also implied that the partial Russian pull-back constitutes full compliance with EU demands.
"The full implementation of the accords of August 12 and September 8 ... paves the way for the resumption of negotiations on an ambitious framework agreement, both in terms of the scope and intensity of co-operation," he said, AFP reports.