Sunday, August 24, 2008 - 17:40
AFP News Briefs ListSarkozy calls emergency EU summit on Georgia for Sept. 1
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU, will convene a special European summit on the crisis in Georgia on September 1, his office said Sunday.
He called the Brussels summit on the future of relations between the EU and Russia and on aid to Georgia at the request of various European countries, the Elysee said.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner had warned this week that Sarkozy might convene an emergency EU meeting if Russia failed to pull back its forces from positions in the ex-Soviet republic.
Russia withdrew tanks, artillery and hundreds of troops from their most advanced positions in Georgia on Friday, saying it had fulfilled all obligations under a French-brokered peace agreement.
But Russian troops still control access to Poti, south of the Moscow-backed rebel region of Abkhazia, and have established other checkpoints around South Ossetia, where the conflict began.
Acting as head of the European Union, Sarkozy had on Saturday telephoned his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev and asked him to withdraw his forces from a road linking Poti to Senaki in western Georgia.
Russian troops entered the former Soviet republic in response to a Georgian offensive on August 7 against separatists in South Ossetia.
Using tanks, artillery and air power, Russsian troops managed to sweep across the country, stopping just some 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the capital Tbilisi.
