Berlin - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier hit out Wednesday the critics of the six-point European Union peace plan for the Georgia-Russia conflict.

"I find it a bit shabby the way it is being disparaged," said Steinmeier during a debate in the Bundestag parliament.

He praised France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, who had negotiated the plan in "difficult" talks in Moscow and Tbilisi.

"This conflict and people's deaths in the southern Caucasus ended because the European Union took up the case," said the minister.

Steinmeier said the plan was "naturally" incomplete, but it would have been "cynical" to keep on negotiating and risk a continuation of the bloodshed in the Caucasus.

"I'm just happy that we can fill the gaps in the document while the guns are silent," said Steinmeier. (dpa)