Moscow agrees deadline to pull out of Georgian 'buffer zones'

RUSSIA HAS agreed to a one-month deadline to withdraw its troops from "buffer zones" around the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and for at least 200 European Union monitors to deploy to those areas by the start of October.

In talks yesterday outside Moscow with French president Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev also pledged to remove Russian military checkpoints near Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti within one week.

In return, Mr Sarkozy said Georgian troops would return to pre-conflict positions and the EU would guarantee a pledge by Tbilisi not to use force to try and reclaim South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which broke with Georgian rule in brief wars in the early 1990s.

Mr Sarkozy said that if all the terms of the agreement were fulfilled, the EU and Russia could resume talks on a new partnership deal next month, and that international negotiations on Georgia, security in the wider Caucasus region, and on the return home of refugees displaced in last month's fighting, could take place in Geneva on October 15th.

"In a week maximum, checkpoints between Senaki and Poti must be removed," Mr Sarkozy said alongside Mr Medvedev at the Meiendorf Castle. "In a month - the full withdrawal of Russian armed forces from Georgian territory outside South Ossetia and Abkhazia."

After four hours of "great discussion and a strong negotiation", Mr Sarkozy described the agreement as "the maximum we could get" and "rather significant".

"If this document is implemented . . . there would be no reason for the meetings between Russia and Europe that were postponed from September not to take place from the month of October," the French leader added.

"Things are perfectly clear: we want partnership and we want peace."

Mr Medvedev renewed his attack on Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili and his supporters in Washington, saying that he had received "a blessing, either in the form of a direct order or silent approval" from the US to launch an "idiotic action" against South Ossetia, which Russia was obliged to halt with military force.

"People died and now all of Georgia must pay for that," Mr Medvedev added.

He also insisted that Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states could not be changed. "Our decision is irrevocable, two new states have come to existence," he said. "This is a reality which all our partners, including our EU partners, will have to reckon with."

Only Nicaragua has followed Moscow's lead in recognising the sovereignty of the two tiny provinces, with even Russia's staunchest former Soviet allies proving reticent.

"It is not up to Russia to recognise unilaterally the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia," said Mr Sarkozy. "There are international rules. These should be respected."

Georgia accused Russia of reinforcing its checkpoints, but welcomed the Moscow deal as Mr Sarkozy flew to Tbilisi.

"This is a very important achievement by President Sarkozy," said the secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, Alexander Lomaia.