EU pushes Russia for troops withdrawal

French president Nicolas Sarkozy today pressed Russia to honour its pledge to withdraw troops from Georgia and warned the Kremlin that the European Union is united on this position.

During the talks with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, Mr Sarkozy’s EU delegation was also pushing for a quick deployment of several hundred EU monitors to Georgia. But just after Sarkozy arrived this morning, a Russian foreign ministry spokesman said Moscow is against an independent EU monitoring mission in Georgia.