David Miliband performed a U-turn on British policy towards Russia yesterday by agreeing to restart talks on a new EU trade and energy pact, despite previously insisting that negotiations would not resume before a full military withdrawal from Georgia.

The Foreign Secretary said that he was not turning his back on Georgia, which was invaded by Russian forces in August, but said that there were wider reasons for returning to the negotiating table with Moscow.

Mr Miliband's shift helped EU foreign ministers in Brussels to agree on reviving talks with Russia on future trade and economic links after Poland also withdrew its objections, in a move seen as an olive branch to Moscow before an EU-Russia summit in France on Friday.

The change of approach comes at a time of rising tensions after President Medvedev announced last week that he would deploy ballistic missiles in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, next to the Polish border, in response to the proposal for US anti-ballistic missiles to be based in Poland.

British officials said that Mr Miliband wanted to support EU moves to calm relations with Moscow after the conflict in Georgia. Many Russian troops remain in the Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The Conservatives criticised the minister for “sending completely the wrong message” to Russia. William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, said: “With this action the EU has shown appalling weakness. First it brokered a ceasefire, then after just three months it has given up on the very terms it negotiated.”

Mr Miliband issued a joint statement with Carl Bildt, the Swedish Foreign Minister, in which they maintained that Russia's actions in Georgia “continue to cast a shadow over the EU's relationship with Russia”. But they added: “We need and want to work with Russia. Negotiations on the [Russia-EU partnership] agreement are a pragmatic way of pursuing our interests across a range of important issues, like energy, climate change and trade, as well as deepening the rules based framework to our relationship.”

The opposition to resuming talks came from Zygimantas Pavilionis, the Lithuanian Deputy Foreign Minister, who said that he wanted a clear link with a full withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia.

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