International monitors leave Georgia

A team of international monitors is ending its 16-year mission in Georgia after Russia refused to allow an extension of the assignment in a dispute over two Kremlin-backed breakaway regions in the Caucasus nation.

The mission by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe expires on December 31 and when OSCE chair Finland called a meeting to seek a three-month extension, talks on the issue collapsed when Russia demanded the group join Moscow in recognising the statehood of the provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.