EU presses Russia on Georgian pull-back

By Francois Murphy and Paul Taylor

AVIGNON, France (Reuters) - The European Union sought on Saturday to raise pressure on Russia to pull back its troops in Georgia by agreeing plans to dispatch up to 200 civilian monitors there as early as next month.

The move came ahead of President Nicolas Sarkozy's visit to Moscow on Monday where he will tell Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev to stick to the terms of an accord to end last month's South Ossetia conflict or risk harming ties with the EU.

"Let him (Medvedev) first respect his own signature. Of the six points, only two or let's say two-and-a-half, perhaps three, have been implemented," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told a news conference after an EU meeting in Avignon, France.

Kouchner did not spell out how the 27-member bloc -- which has so far avoided sanctions on its biggest energy supplier -- would respond if the Kremlin refused to pull back its troops to pre-conflict lines.

"It depends on the Russia answer of course... We must find a way to solve the problem," he added, acknowledging pressure from some ex-communist states for tougher action but insisting on the risk of the EU imposing what he called "unuseful sanctions".

Foreign ministers of the bloc approved plans to send a civilian monitoring mission to work with existing observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Officials said details of the EU mission would depend on the outcome of Sarkozy's visit.

Some nations argued for a deployment first to core Georgia, with personnel then spreading to buffer zones set up by Moscow in defiance of the West, and finally to the rebel regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.