EU weighs monitor role to break Georgia stand-off

By Mark John

AVIGNON, France (Reuters) - European Union foreign ministers will discuss on Friday the quick launch of a civilian monitoring mission in Georgia, with the aim of getting several hundred personnel on the ground as soon as possible.

The plan is vital to Western efforts to convince Russia to withdraw troops from its small ex-Soviet neighbor, whose army Moscow crushed last month after Tbilisi's abortive effort to win back the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia.

"The aim is for the EU mission to go as soon as it can," said one EU official before the two-day meeting in the southern French city of Avignon.

The official added that a decision to deploy an initial 200-plus personnel could be taken in just over a week after French President Nicolas Sarkozy returns from a trip to Moscow.

France brokered a deal to end the war over South Ossetia last month, but Moscow has since defied the West by leaving troops in "security zones" along the lines separating Georgia from South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another rebel region.

The EU argues that increasing the presence of international monitors would mean that Moscow could no longer justify keeping its troops in those areas, and so would accept international talks on a new security blueprint for the rebel regions.

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But officials acknowledge Russia's response is uncertain and that the success of the plan could hang on Sarkozy's trip on Monday to urge Moscow to pull troops back to pre-conflict lines.