Russia to Leave Georgia After Eu Deal

Russia last night agreed to pull all of its forces out of Georgia within a month, after an agreement in Moscow between France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev.

Describing yesterday's deal as "momentous", Sarkozy said Moscow had agreed to scrap its checkpoints inside Georgia in a week and had promised to remove all forces from areas adjacent to the breakaway enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia within a month.

The agreement also envisaged the deployment of a 200-strong force of EU observers to Georgia by October 1, Sarkozy said. Additionally, international talks would take place on October 15 in Geneva on the future of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Moscow recognized as independent late last month.

Sarkozy, the current EU president, led today's negotiations together with the European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, and the EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana. The deal appears to mark a major achievement for Sarkozy. He had been widely criticized after Moscow's failure to implement his previous August 12 ceasefire agreement, which called for Russia to pull its troops out.

"All has not been resolved," Sarkozy said. "We are aware of that. But what has been resolved has been considerable." He hailed the deal and added that both the EU and Russia had avoided "a cold war that we don't need." In a press conference yesterday afternoon, after four hours of talks, Medvedev made clear that Russia's withdrawal of forces depended on Georgia signing a "non-aggression pact" with South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The pullout does not include Abkhazia and South Ossetia where, Medvedev said, Russia would continue to provide what he termed "military assistance".

Sarkozy flew to Tbilisi last night to hold talks with Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, who yesterday wrote a letter accepting a non-aggression pact.

However, in a sign of continuing tension between Russia and the US, the Bush administration said it was canceling a much-heralded civilian nuclear cooperation deal with Russia, which Bush had sent to Congress for approval in May, after two years of tough negotiations. The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said in a statement yesterday: "We make this decision with regret. Unfortunately, given the current environment, the time is not right for this agreement."

Earlier, in Moscow, Medvedev had bitterly criticized the US, which, he said, had encouraged Georgia's "aggression" against South Ossetia and its attack on August 8. The US was also "actively" re-arming Georgia, he claimed, and made it clear that Russia would no longer accept a "unipolar model" of world affairs in which the US decided "the rules of the game".

Asked whether the Kremlin planned to invade any more of its neighbors, Medvedev looked irritated. Referring to Georgia, he said: 'This is an individual situation. Everything else is just plots ... Some people are trying to look at Russia like the Soviet Union. Russia is different. But Russia needs to be taken into account."

Assuming Russia fully withdraws its forces, talks could resume in October on an EU-Russia cooperation deal, Sarkozy said. EU countries suspended the talks last week in protest at Russia's actions in Georgia.

According to Russia's Kommersant newspaper, Moscow plans to establish diplomatic relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia today.