(TALLINN) - The presidents of Estonia, Latvia and Poland called for international observers and humanitarian aid for Georgia at a snap Thursday meeting ahead of the EU's Monday summit on the Georgia crisis.

"The three presidents consider it important that international observers be sent to Georgia to help provide an objective overview of the situation on the ground and to help prevent the conflict from being reignited," the presidents said in a joint statement after meeting in the Estonian capital Tallinn.

"Georgia requires Europe's support in order to recover from the destruction of the war, which in the short term means extensive humanitarian aid for relieving the problems of war refugees and people who have lost their homes," the statement said.

Prior to the talks Latvian president Valdis Zatlers also urged the international community to focus on economic aid for Georgia.

"The international community also needs to start talking about how to help Georgian economy recover from the damages it has suffered," he told reporters.

The leaders of the three ex-communist EU newcomers said the EU must be "decisive" in protecting the values of the 27-European Union within the context of Russia's August 8 attack on independent Georgia.

"We cannot silently stand by as post-Cold-War Europe's security architecture is attacked," Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves said.

As new members of both the EU and NATO, ex-communist Poland and the ex-Soviet Baltic three states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have been among Georgia's most ardent supporters in the conflict with Russia and have long advocated the ex-Soviet republic's bid to join NATO and the European Union, a move vehemently opposed by Russia.

Lithuania's President Valdas Adamkus who was unable to attend the impromptu meeting in Tallinn due to prior engagements was represented by an aide.

The meeting comes just days ahead of the September 1 emergency EU summit called by current EU president France to hammer-out the 27-member bloc's policy stance on the Georgia crisis.

The presidents of Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania and Estonia and Latvia's prime minister visited Georgia shortly after the August 8 start of the crisis expressing their support and asking Russia to withdraw its troops from Georgia immediately.

The leaders also slammed a plan by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to end Moscow's conflict with Tbilisi, saying it failed to protect Georgia.

Poland's President Lech Kaczynski blasted the six-point peace plan negotiated with Russia by Sarkozy, saying it failed to mention the need for Russia to respect Georgia's borders, which have been a source of conflict since the country broke from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991.

Fighting between Georgia and Russia broke out August 8 after the Georgian army launched an offensive to bring South Ossetia, which broke away in the early 1990s, back under government control.

Russia has since halted its five-day long offensive but has failed to withdraw all its troops from Georgian territory.

On Tuesday Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree officially recognising the two breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The move has drawn sharp criticism from Europe, the US and NATO as an illegal violation of Georgia's territorial integrity.

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