Vienna - The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) cannot send monitors to the Georgian region of South Ossetia for now, after talks broke down owing to Russia's insistence that the officers should not be stationed in the separatist province.
"There is no point in continuing negotiations in Vienna, at this stage," said Finland, the current OSCE chairman, in a statement.
While most of the organization's 56 members want to deploy unarmed military monitors in all of Georgia, including South Ossetia, diplomats said Russia wants to keep monitors out of that region.
Brussels - The European Union should not re-start talks on a partnership agreement with Russia until it pulls some 4,000 extra troops out of the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, sources from a number of member states said Thursday.
"Talks on the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) should not be opened before the Russian troops have decreased their numbers, including in South Ossetia and Abkhazia," an EU diplomat who asked to remain anonymous told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
London - This summer's conflict between Russia and Georgia should lead to a "more considered analysis" of NATO enlargement to avoid eastward expansion becoming a "game of Russian roulette," a leading defence research institute warned Thursday.
The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said the conflict had marked the "distinct end of the romantic phase of the post-Cold War order" and cast doubt on whether Georgia would be a "responsible member" of the NATO alliance.
Moscow/ Sochi, Russia - German ex-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said Thursday 100 million euros were being spent on an environmental study of the Nord Stream pipeline project for gas from Russia to Germany, which he chairs.
"The most acute problems for the realisation of the Nord Stream project are of course issues over ecological preservation," Schroeder was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying.
He made the comments at a meeting with Russia's premier Vladimir Putin and the head of national energy Gazprom Alexei Miller in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
Moscow - Russia's two leading stock exchanges remained mostly shut for the third day Thursday as stocks took their worst dive since the 1998 financial crisis.
The dollar-denominated RTS is still waiting for permission from the Federal Financial Markets Service to resume trading, the market's press office said.
A spokesman said it was unclear whether the index would open Thursday.
Vienna - The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) cannot send monitors to the Georgian region of South Ossetia for now, after talks broke down owing to Russia's insistence that the officers should not be stationed in the separatist province.
Brussels - The European Union should not re-start talks on a partnership agreement with Russia until it pulls some 4,000 extra troops out of the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, sources from a number of member states said Thursday.
London - This summer's conflict between Russia and Georgia should lead to a "more considered analysis" of NATO enlargement to avoid eastward expansion becoming a "game of Russian roulette," a leading defence research institute warned Thursday.
Moscow - Russia's two leading stock exchanges remained mostly shut for the third day Thursday as stocks took their worst dive since the 1998 financial crisis.
