Russia accuses EU of twisting Georgia peace deal

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused European Union leaders on Wednesday of distorting a Russia-EU deal on the deployment of international ceasefire monitors in Georgia.

Lavrov said French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso signed a document late on Monday in the Georgian capital which contradicted a deal sealed earlier that day in Moscow.

The document, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, states that the EU "stands ready to deploy monitors in the whole of Georgian territory".

But Lavrov said the deal Russia had signed stated the ceasefire monitors would be deployed only outside the breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

"It is a completely unscrupulous attempt not to honestly explain to (Georgian President Mikheil) Saakashvili what commitments the EU had taken on itself, and what commitments Russia had undertaken, but to be led on a string by Mr Saakashvili," Lavrov said.

"For us, what happened in Tbilisi, what was discussed in Tbilisi, has absolutely no significance," he told a news briefing.

In Brussels, Georgia's ambassador to NATO said the EU personnel would deploy outside the rebel zones and merely expressed the hope that they would enter them later.

"We hope that these monitors will cover all territory of Georgia, but first step it will be beyond the administrative borders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia," Revaz Beshidze told reporters.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told reporters in Brussels the EU priority was to deploy personnel by October 1 to monitor the Russian withdrawal from Georgia proper.