Russia said on September 8 that although it was not against the presence of international monitors in Georgia, it thought “an autonomous EU monitoring mission” would be inappropriate.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said after an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Avignon on September 6 that an agreement had been reached to send “an autonomous ESDP [European Security and Defence Policy] mission [to Georgia] as part of the OSCE presence in the first instance.”

“We believe that [the EU’s autonomous mission] will lead to unnecessary fragmentation of international monitoring efforts, which currently are already underway by the UN [in the Abkhaz conflict zone] and the OSCE [in areas adjacent to South Ossetia],” Andrey Nesterenko, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said on September 8.

He, however, also said that Russia supported a further increase in the number of unarmed OSCE military monitors on the ground.

Last week, Russia has submitted a draft resolution to the OSCE Permanent Council calling for the introduction of a civilian police operation in Georgia under the organization’s aegis.

According to the draft resolution, Russia is proposing the deployment of civilian police in the so-called “security zone” adjacent to South Ossetia, currently occupied by Russian forces, between the South Ossetian administrative border and the key east-west highway.

Russia also said that the EU could provide human, material and financial resources for the deployment of such an OSCE civil police operation.

Russia, like any other OSCE member-state, has veto-wielding power in the OSCE.