Russia Agrees to Georgia Troop Pull-Out

Via IHT -

After a tense four-hour meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Russia's president, Dmitri Medvedev, announced Monday that Russia agreed to withdraw its troops by mid-October from its positions in Georgia outside the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

He also agreed to allow 200 observers from the European Union to monitor the conflict, a step that Russia had resisted. But Medvedev said Russia would stand by its decision to recognize the two breakaway regions as independent nations.

"We have made our choice," he said at a joint news conference afterward. "This is a final and irreversible choice. This is an irrevocable decision."

Medvedev's comments were greeted defiantly by the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, in Tbilisi, where Sarkozy brought the agreement later on Monday.

Saakashvili offered cautious approval of the deal but openly questioned whether Moscow could be trusted, saying he had received written assurances from the European Union that it would protect Georgia's territorial integrity.

"There is no way Georgia will ever give up a piece of its sovereignty, a piece of its territory," he said. "Of course they should get the hell out of the territories they control."

Sarkozy's grueling day underlined the challenge facing European mediators as they try to bring the two sides together. The conflict has become a test for the European Union's ambition to become a major foreign policy player on a par with the United States, and a personal credibility test for the French president, who currently holds the bloc's rotating presidency.

Sarkozy's task is harder because the European Union has been bitterly divided over how to manage its relationship with Russia. Some member nations, like France, have struggled to safeguard Europe's economic interests in Russia, while former ex-Communist countries like Poland want the bloc to punish Russia for failing to uphold human rights and respect democratic norms.

At times, Sarkozy's frustration showed — as when a reporter in Moscow asked if he had allowed Russia to alter Georgia's borders.

"It was not up to Russia to define Georgia's borders or frontiers," he said. "The Russians will say what they wish to say."