(VILNIUS) - A group of EU foreign ministers on Sunday began talks ahead of a mission to Georgia, where they hope to soothe tensions with Russia, also tackling the thorny issue of Lithuania's veto on a separate EU-Moscow accord.

Sweden's Carl Bildt, Poland's Radoslaw Sikorski and Slovenia's Dimitrij Rupel, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency until the end of June, sat down with their Lithuanian counterpart Petras Vaitiekunas for a closed-door meeting Sunday evening in Vilnius, Lithuanian foreign ministry spokeswoman Daiva Rimasauskaite said.

On Saturday, Rupel had reportedly riled Vilnius after a behind-the-scenes warning that he could skip Monday's planned five-nation EU mediation mission to Georgia unless Lithuania gave way on the EU pact with Russia.

Any of the EU's 27 member states can block talks between the union and other countries, and Lithuania had put the brakes on last month.

Lithuanian diplomats Saturday said linking the Georgia and EU-Russia issues was "inapt" and that Vilnius would not budge.

As he arrived for Sunday's meeting in Vilnius, Rupel said he "absolutely" believed that the ministers would find a solution to Lithuania's objections.

Asked if he would be joining Monday's mission to Georgia, Rupel responded: "Let's hope so."

Bildt, Sikorski, Rupel and Vaitiekunas are scheduled to fly to Tbilisi Monday, and are set to be joined there by Latvia's Foreign Minister Maris Riekstins.

Rupel has said he wants to establish the precise level of tension between Georgia and Russia -- seemingly on a collision course over two breakaway regions of Georgia, above all Abkhazia but also South Ossetia.

Pro-Western Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Thursday that his country had been on the verge of war with Russia for days, and that the threat remained real.

Tensions have been rising since mid-April.

First, Moscow announced it was boosting ties with the pro-Russian separatist authorities in Abkhazia, then it increased the number of "peacekeeping" forces in the region, saying Georgia was preparing a military assault to try and re-take the rebel territory.

Tbilisi presented that development as a precursor to high-level military aggression, a stance which found some favour with Western leaders who want to see the former Soviet republic admitted into NATO.

Alongside NATO, the EU also supported Georgia's position, accusing Moscow of compromising Georgia's territorial integrity.

Lithuania, which joined the EU and NATO in 2004, 13 years after breaking free from the crumbling communist bloc, is a strong supporter of fellow ex-Soviet republic Georgia.

Last month, Vilnius unilaterally blocked EU attempts to open talks on a new "Partnership and Cooperation Agreement" with energy-rich and newly assertive Russia, to replace the old deal signed in 1997 when Moscow was still reeling from the Soviet collapse.

Vilnius demanded that the Georgia dispute and a number of other sensitive issues be spelled out in the EU negotiating mandate.

For example, it wants Russia's active cooperation over energy supplies.

Russia's oil supplies via the "Druzhba" pipeline to Lithuania were cut off in 2006, with maintenance work cited as the reason, after Lithuania decided to sell its only oil refinery -- Mazeikiu Nafta -- to a Polish group instead of a Russian one.

Vilnius also wants Russia to help Lithuania bring to justice the killers of seven Lithuanian border guards and policemen at its Medininkai border post by Soviet special forces on July 31, 1991, after Lithuania's turbulent declaration of independence from the Soviet Union.

Lithuanian prosecutors allege Russian justice officials have declined to question three suspected killers.

The mandate is to be discussed at a meeting of all 27 EU foreign ministers on May 26.

The EU hopes the talks can be launched at an EU-Russia summit in Siberia on June 26-27, when new president Dmitry Medvedev will represent Russia for the first time.

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