Estonia's Ansip surprised at Sarkozy

Nov 11, 2008
In cooperation with BNS

BRUSSELS, - Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip on Nov. 7 voiced his surprise over the words of French President Nicholas Sarkozy that Russia has met the obligations taken as part of the terms of the ceasefire that ended the conflict in Georgia.

"I cannot believe that he has claimed that troops have been fully pulled out," Ansip told reporters after the extraordinary EU summit in Brussels.

The Estonian prime minister thought the position of the French president is very unambiguous in that Russia has not fulfilled the obligations it has itself assumed.

Sarkozy said that Russia has fulfilled the conditions of the Georgia peace plan and this topic can no longer be an obstacle to the resumption of talks on the new framework agreement.

"I cannot confirm this, because how I have understood, and Lithuanian President [Valdas] Adamkus has exactly in the same way understood Sarkozy is that the EU is not satisfied that troops have not been fully pulled out from Georgia, because they are still in the Akhalgori region and in Abkhazia and South Ossetia," he said.

Ansip said the topic would be raised with again at the EU-Russia summit in Nice at the end of next week.

France, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, wants to revive the EU-Russia deal at a Nov. 14 summit with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in the French city of Nice. The agreement would replace a deal signed in 1997 which has lost much of its relevance owing to Russia's new energy wealth and increasingly assertive foreign policy.

The EU froze the talks Sept. 1, saying they would resume only after Russia had met the terms of the Sarkozy-brokered truce which called for both Russia and Georgia to pull troops back to positions held before the August war.

Poland and Lithuania argue it was wrong to resume business with Moscow so soon after the invasion of Georgia and its recognition of the breakaway regions.

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