EU Meets Commitments ? Solana

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on September 30 that although it was very difficult for the European Union to organize a monitoring mission in such a short period, it had met this commitment.

Solana was speaking at the Office of the EU Monitoring Mission in Tbilisi, which starts operating from October 1.

He called on all parties involved to meet their commitments, just as the EU had done. 

According to the agreement signed by the French and Russian presidents in Moscow on September 8, EU observers will be deployed in the areas adjacent to South Ossetia and Abkhazia by October 1. Russian troops, which currently occupy those areas, should withdraw within ten days of the EU observers being deployed.

Meanwhile, Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said that at the first stage Russian forces should leave the so-called “buffer zones”, and afterwards “we are sure that with the help of the [EU] monitors, we will be able to take control of those territories currently controlled by the Russians.”

“Our opinions absolutely coincide with those of the monitors,” Merabishvili told reporters on September 30.

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