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Finland urges international representative for Caucasus

01 September 2008, 16:40 CET

(BRUSSELS) - Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, who currently holds the OSCE's presidency, called Monday for an international "high representative" for the Caucasus, which he said needed a "new stability pact."

"What I am calling for is a full international presence and what I suggest in my capacity as OSCE chair is that we nominate one high representative for the region," he told journalists as he arrived for an EU summit.

"That person then will have a staff from the EU, from the OSCE, from the US, from the UN and from Russia," he added.

"We need a new stability pact for the Caucasus, because we have left the region too much to its own, a little bit like how we left the Western Balkans," Stubb said.

EU leaders were meeting in Brussels at an emergency summit called to review relations with Russia and rally support for Georgia after the conflict between the two last month.

Stubb joined several European officials in ruling out possible EU sanctions against Moscow, which Georgia has pushed for and Russia has warned against.

"I don't want any sanctions because we are economically interdependent with the Russians," he said.

"The Russians need our markets, we need the Russian market, it doesn't mean we should stay away from tough language."

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