Sarkozy: Russia ‘Largely Fulfilled’ Ceasefire Terms

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on November 14, that Russia had “largely implemented” its ceasefire commitments in Georgia, but also said that Russia still had to pull out troops from some of the areas, the French news agency, AFP, reported.

“I had an opportunity to say to Mr. Medvedev that there needs to be progress on the retreat of Russian forces in two particular parts of Ossetia, I’m thinking of Akhalgori and Perevi, outside South Ossetia,” AFP reported quoting Sarkozy.

He was speaking at a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, after EU-Russian summit in Nice.

Dmitry Medvedev said at the news conference in Nice after the summit, that Russia “fully recognizes” Georgia’s territorial integrity, but without South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Moscow has already recognized as independent states. 

“I believe that Medvedev-Sarkozy plan is fully implemented,” Medvedev added.

European Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso, announced after the summit that EU would resume partnership talks with Russia, put on hold after the August war.

Meanwhile, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Merkel, said Washington had cautioned the EU and its member states about restarting talks with Russia in the light of Moscow not fulfilling the cease-fire agreement.”

Beginning the negotiations “before these commitments have been met could be misunderstood by Moscow, leaving it with the impression that the EU values its relationship with Russia far more that Moscow does with the EU,” The Associated Press quoted a statement by the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary.

The two issues – EU-Russia partnership talks and Georgia – have been interlinked since September 1, when EU leaders took a decision, which reads: “Until troops have withdrawn to the positions held prior to 7 August, meetings on the negotiation of the Partnership Agreement [with Russia] will be postponed.”

Russia has withdrawn its troops since then from the areas adjacent to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but it still keeps troops inside the two breakaway regions, including in those areas, where there was no Russian military presence before the August war – these territories, along with Akhalgori and Perevi, are: villages around the breakaway region’s capital, Tskhinvali, which were populated mainly by the ethnic Georgians before the war erupted, as well as upper Kodori Gorge in breakaway Abkhazia.

Akhalgori administratively is inside the former South Ossetian autonomous region, but it has always been the Tbilisi’s control before the August war.

The village of Perevi is located on the western part of the South Ossetian administrative border. Currently administratively, the village is part of the Georgia’s Sachkhere district; but Russian forces refused to remove its checkpoint from the village as part of the withdrawal from the adjacent areas, citing that the village was part of the former Autonomous District of South Ossetia.

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