Luxembourg - European Union foreign ministers were Monday expected to postpone any decision to resume partnership talks with Russia amid disagreements over whether Moscow has complied with a peace deal in Georgia. Ministers arriving at a meeting in Luxembourg indicated that reaching consensus on the strategic Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) talks would take time.
"We have to take it fairly slowly," said Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb. "I do not expect a decision (on the PCA) to be taken today."
EU leaders agreed on September 1 to freeze PCA negotiations because of Russia's "disproportionate use of force" in Georgia.
The freeze was to last "until troops have withdrawn to the positions held prior to 7 August," the date Russia's war with Georgia began, EU leaders said at the time.
Stubb chairs the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which has a military monitoring operation in Georgia.
And last Thursday, his monitors said Moscow had pulled its forces out of the buffer zones adjacent to the separatist enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, one day ahead of the expiry of an October 10 deadline brokered by the EU.
But OSCE officials also said Russian troops were still present in the Akhalgori area, and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Monday acknowledged that "problems remain."
"They have made some withdrawals, primarily from the buffer zones, but there are areas which they are occupying now where they were not on August 7," Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said at his arrival in Luxembourg.
Another hawk, British Foreign Minister David Miliband, said EU nations should first wait for the launch of peace talks due to take place in Geneva on Wednesday.
"In due course we can address the PCA," Miliband said, "but at the moment we should be focusing on ensuring that all the elements that were agreed in September, including the Geneva talks, get going with proper speed."
And while dovish Germany and Italy both said it was in the EU's interest to re-start PCA talks with Russia as soon as possible, Luxembourg's Jean Asselborn acknowledged that a decision would not likely be taken much before an EU-Russia summit, due to take place on November 14 in Nice.
"One solution could be to wait for the (European) Commission's report and then start the negotiations before the November 14 summit," Asselborn said.
With Britain, Sweden, Poland and the Baltic trio all expressing irritation at the fact that Russia is maintaining a substantial military presence inside Georgia's two breakaway regions, the French presidency of the EU was forced to drop references to the talks resuming in November in a preparatory document for Monday's meeting.
