(MOSCOW) - Russia said Friday it hoped that "reason will prevail over emotions" at the European Union summit called to discuss the Georgia conflict.

EU leaders are meeting in Brussels on Monday for the emergency summit called by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to press demands for more Russian withdrawals from Georgia.

"We hope that reason will prevail over emotions and that EU leaders will find the strength to reject a one-sided assessment of the conflict and give an independent, objective and detailed assessment of the situation and what caused it," said foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko.

A source in the French presidency said in Paris earlier that the EU will not call for sanctions against Russia, backtracking on comments made by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner the previous day.

The foreign ministry spokesman stressed that "some countries were energetically pushing the EU toward a path of confrontation, that would not benefit any of the sides." He did not elaborate.

Kouchner had said Thursday that some EU states were considering imposing sanctions on Russia but a Sarkozy aide said the 27-nation bloc would merely state "that the six-point deal must be applied in its entirety."

Russia and Georgia signed a six-point ceasefire plan brokered by Sarkozy that put an end to the fighting.

The conflict erupted on 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 maintains it completed its troop withdrawal from deep inside Georgia last week and that remaining troops are serving in a "peacekeeping" mission. Tbilisi has labeled them an "occupation force."

Russia is facing an avalanche of criticism from the West over its decision to recognise the independence of two Georgian secessionist regions at the heart of the conflict: South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

It is also facing demands from the European Union and NATO for a withdrawal from western Georgia.

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