By IRNA,
Berlin : German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier did not rule out the possibility of sending German ceasefire monitors to the Georgian breakaway province of South Ossetia, media reports said on Thursday.
Talking to German television, Steinmeier said that if there was a call for stationing European Union observers in South Ossetia, Germany could not ignore such a request.
The European Union announced Wednesday in Brussels it was ready to play a greater role in mediating the Georgian-Russian conflict and dispatch observers to ensure that a truce is monitored in the Caucasus region.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner who chaired an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers in the Belgian capital, also proposed that the bloc could eventually deploy armed peacekeepers to the southern Caucasus, but made clear that such an operation would have to be backed by the United Nations.
“We are determined to act on the ground,” said Kouchner whose country holds the EU’s current rotating presidency.