Russian Pledge To Withdraw Troops Adverts EU Sanctions
-- The Australian
-- The Australian
EU leaders shied away from imposing sanctions on Russia yesterday after French President Nicolas Sarkozy received the personal assurance of his Russian counterpart that he would finally withdraw troops from Georgia.
The European bloc opted instead to freeze talks with Moscow on closer ties until Russia withdrew from Georgia.
Mr Sarkozy will travel to Moscow next Monday on behalf of the EU to check compliance with the peace plan he negotiated last month, giving Russia a second chance to pull back its forces to their positions before the invasion on August 8.
Speaking after an emergency EU summit on the Georgian crisis, Mr Sarkozy, whose country holds the EU presidency, defended Europe's soft approach by insisting a punitive or military response would set the EU and Russia on the path to a new Cold War.
The 27 leaders agreed to postpone long-running trade and aid talks with Moscow until it withdrew its troops, which it has promised to do on numerous occasions. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Mr Sarkozy was assured by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he would meet the terms of the peace plan.
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My Comment: Europeans are saying that discussions on sanctions will be revisited in a few weeks. But everyone knows that ethnic cleansing will have been finished by then, and the issue of where Russian soldiers should be dug in will be swept under the rug as a "fait accompli".