By Prensa Latina,
Moscow : Russian President Dmitri Medvedev confirmed to European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana on Tuesday the end of his country’s operations in the Ossetian conflict.
After meeting his French peer Nicolas Sarkozy in Moscow, the Russian president asserted that the units to reinforce the peacekeeping contingent in the mentioned Georgian separatist region would keep their defensive positions, without military actions.
Sarkozy called god news Moscow’s decision of declaring cease of fire in the conflict in southern Ossetia, after the Georgian army launched on Thursday an offensive against that region, which proclaimed itself independent in 1993, after a one-year war.
The French Head of Sate said Russia should use force to guarantee peace.
It is perfectly normal that Russia wants to defend its interests, as well as those of the Russians in their country and of the Russophobes out of it, said the French statesman, who also considered normal that the international community wants to guarantee Georgia’s integrity.
Georgian Reintegration Minister Temuri Yakovashvili said the Russian troops stopped their advance. There is no any movement by troops, but they remain in their positions, he stated from Tiflis.
However, Yakovashvili said the war would not end until withdrawal of the last occupant of the Georgian territory, referring to the Russian troops, which are in Ossetia as part of a peacekeeping contingent of the Community of Independent States.
Later on this day, Russian defense authorities denied versions spread by Georgian officials that operations in Ossetia continued.