Berlin  - German Chancellor Angela Merkel is to travel to Tbilisi to lend her backing to efforts to end hostilities in Georgia, her official spokesman said Wednesday.

Merkel also said that the time was not right for allocating blame in the conflict that erupted in the breakaway region of South Ossetia last week.

"The chancellor is firmly convinced that this is not the time for looking into motives, for allocating blame, for denouncing anyone or for making final judgements," Merkel's official spokesman, Thomas Steg, said.

A long-term solution to the conflict needed to be found, Steg said.

The chancellor would travel to Tbilisi to hold talks with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili next week, he said.

Merkel is to hold talks with Russian President Dimitry Medvedev in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Friday in talks that were planned well before the Georgian conflict erupted into open hostility last week.

Steg said the government welcomed the de facto ceasefire in South Ossetia and was making all efforts to ensure it held. Germany stood by the view that Georgia's territorial integrity should not be infringed.

Asked about a proposal by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner for European Union peacekeepers to be sent to Georgia, Steg said the German cabinet had expressed "scepticism."

The EU presidency, currently held by France, said Wednesday the EU should consider sending peacekeepers to the region to support international diplomatic efforts.

An international peace mission would be "a good idea, but they have to accept it. And it is not up to me to decide," Kouchner said.

He avoided calling any European presence in Georgia a "peacekeeping force," preferring instead the terms "monitors" or "facilitators." (dpa)