Russian troops will withdraw from Georgia as additional security measures are carried out, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday.
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Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrives for an EU Troika-Russia meeting at the European Council in Luxembourg on April 29, 2008. [Xinhua/Reuters, File Photo] |
The pace of the withdrawal would depend on "how extra security measures for the peacekeeping force are being put into practice on the ground," he was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying in Sochi.
"This does not depend on us alone because we are constantly coming up against some problems on the Georgian side, and everything depends on how effectively and quickly these problems are solved," he said.
In addition, Lavrov said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered his government to put the peace agreement into practice and take "extra security measures" for South Ossetia.
Medvedev signed the peace plan for settling the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict earlier in the day.
Under the document endorsed Tuesday by the presidents of Russia and France in Moscow, Georgian troops should return to their bases while the Russian military should pull back to its previous positions.
(Xinhua News Agency August 17, 2008)
