Russia was given an extra month to withdraw its troops from Georgia yesterday after a tense meeting with European Union leaders in Moscow.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, emerged from negotiations with President Dmitri Medvedev to say that they had reached a new agreement requiring “in one month, the complete pullout of Russian forces from Georgian territory, outside South Ossetia and Abkhazia”.

President Medvedev said that international talks on the future of the two regions would begin on October 15. However, he added that Russia's decision to recognise them as independent states was final and irrevocable.

He also agreed to the deployment of at least 200 EU observers in Georgia to replace Russian troops by October 1. Russia's Foreign Ministry had dismissed this proposal earlier in the day.

Mr Sarkozy flew to Moscow with José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission President, and Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, in an attempt to enforce a ceasefire deal signed last month. He told Mr Medvedev that the EU was united in this demand.

The EU and the United States have accused Russia of breaching the ceasefire brokered by Mr Sarkozy by keeping thousands of soldiers on Georgian soil. Russia insists that only “peacekeeping” troops remain and that this is permitted under the deal signed on August 12 to end the five-day war.

The EU suspended negotiations on a new partnership agreement with Russia in response to the crisis.

In a three-day hearing that started yesterday lawyers for Georgia appealed to the International Court of Justice in The Hague for emergency protection from ethnic cleansing for more than 50,000 Georgians it said were at risk of persecution in areas taken over by Russian-backed forces.

Russia countered that it had only acted in self-defence against aggression from Georgia and claimed that the UN's highest court had no jurisdiction to hear the case.

Promises and suspicion

— When Vladimir Putin met Nato leaders as President, he told them that any further eastward expansion of the alliance would be considered “a direct threat to our country’s security” .

— His warning caused Nato members to wobble in offering membership plans to Ukraine and Georgia

— It is almost an article of faith in the Kremlin that Nato is an alliance directed against Russia

— Officials in Moscow accuse Nato of breaking a promise to the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev not to expand eastwards if he withdrew troops from East Germany

— Since then, the former Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe and the Baltic states have all joined Nato

— Mr Putin once entertained the idea of Russia joining Nato. That no longer fits Russia’s self-image as a power in competition with the US

— Moscow views Nato as a US-dominated alliance determined to encircle Russia

Tony Halpin

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