Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, the chairman of the Council of Europe (CoE) Committee of Ministers, invited his colleagues to an informal ministerial meeting, not due to have taken place for another few weeks, to discuss the Georgia-Russia conflict.

Representatives from CoE member-states met in Strasbourg on September 3 and discussed the situation in Georgia, according to a CoE press release. The Georgian Foreign Ministry said Zurab Tchiaberashvili, Georgia’s envoy to the CoE, addressed the meeting. The Russian representative also delivered a speech.

“There was agreement about the seriousness of the conflict: two [CoE] member-states having engaged in open war with considerable loss of lives and suffering imposed on civilians; the core values of the Council of Europe thus being challenged,” the CoE said in the press release.