Sarkozy calls for calm in Caucasus

French president Nicolas Sarkozy put together the six-point plan to end the war between Georgia and Russia. So he is one of the most vexed at what has happened since.

As current EU president he is taking a lead on the issue, and on Wednesday he spoke with the Russian and Georgian presidents on the phone, stressing the “urgent need to lower tension and apply all six points of the peace plan”.

Sarkozy has called an extraordinary European Council meeting for 1st September. “No one wants to go back to a cold war. NATO is not an opponent of Russia, but a partner. With regards to the European Union it has the will to build, with Russia, an intricate and positive relationship. But today it is up to Russia to make a fundamental choice,” he said.

Russian President Dimitri Medvedev was in Dushanbe in Tajikistan on Wednesday ahead of a meeting of the Shanghai bloc of nations. He has written to several world leaders and western media outlets to explain his recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia’s independence, saying Russia had “no choice”.

He added Russia would pull all its forces out of Georgia and welcome international peacekeepers as soon as a mechanism for sending them was established.