Ceasefire monitors cannot enter Georgia buffer zone

EU ceasefire monitors will for the time being not have access to a security zone south of Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia region, a Russian military spokesman said yesterday.

"From tomorrow, representatives of the EU will begin conducting monitoring up to the southern borders of the security zone," Vitaly Manushko, said the head of the temporary press centre for the Russian peacekeeping force around South Ossetia.

Under a French-brokered ceasefire deal, Russian troops stationed in Georgia since a brief war in August are to pull back from undisputed Georgian territory by October 10, and allow EU monitors to take over duties patrolling the security zone.

Mr Manushko said Russian and EU officials, meeting in the Georgian village of Karaleti yesterday, had failed to finalise a technical and logistical agreement which would have allowed the EU monitors to enter the security zone from Wednesday.

A senior EU official on Monday said the EU contingent of more than 300 civilian monitors and support staff was deployed in Georgia and would be ready to begin their mission in the early hours of October 1.

Georgian police are also expected to move into the security zone after the Russian withdrawal.