The head of Europe's main security and rights body said on Wednesday she was confident of reaching a deal with Russia to prevent the collapse of its monitoring in Georgia, seen by the West as crucial to stopping violence.
Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyanni, on her first trip to Moscow since taking over the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe rotating chairmanship, said she would discuss the proposals with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.
"You cannot expect from a country to change the basic position which they have, but that does not mean we cannot find a solution in getting our missions in, this is something else and this should be possible," she said. Russia vetoed an extension to the mandate for military observers from the OSCE to Georgia late last year because it wanted a separate mission to Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia.
Western states have refused to comply with that because they say it would amount to de facto acknowledgement that South Ossetia is a sovereign state. Only Russia and Nicaragua have recognised the region as independent. "The question is not if we can find the formula - we can find the formula - as long as we have the will," Bakoyanni told Reuters in an interview before her meeting with Lavrov.
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