Russia started diplomatic maneuvering over ceasefire deal by saying UN resolution on the matter was not important.
Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, spoke with his French counterpart, Nikola Sarkozy, on the phone late on August 13 and discussed the six-point provisional agreement with Georgia on ceasefire.
The initial agreement, as it was laid out by the French President after shuttle diplomacy between Moscow and Tbilisi, was to have a binding resolution passed by the UN Security Council based on the agreed principle.
“Dmitry Medvedev noted it was not the UN resolution or any sort of declaration that was the most important thing now for ensuring a sustainable process of normalising situation in the region,” the Kremlin said in a press release reporting on the phone conversation between the two presidents, “but [the most important] is to have an agreement based on those [agreed six] principles, that will be signed by the South Ossetian and Georgian sides, as well as by Russia, EU and OSCE, as guarantors of its [the agreement’s] implementation.”
The six-point plan was endorsed by the EU foreign ministers at an emergency meeting in Brussels on August 13. The plan includes following principles:
- Not to resort to force;
- To end hostilities definitively;
- To provide free access for humanitarian aid;
- Georgian military forces will have to withdraw to their usual bases;
- Russian military forces will have to withdraw to the lines held prior to the outbreak of hostilities. Pending an international mechanism, Russian peacekeeping forces will implement additional security measures;
- Opening of international talks on the security and stability arrangements in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.