Poland offers personnel for EU mission in Georgia

(WARSAW) - Poland is prepared to send police officers for an EU mission in Georgia the bloc wants to deploy to observe a ceasefire after Russia's invasion last month, Poland's foreign minister said Friday.

"At this stage it seems that above all we will need police officers," Radoslaw Sikorski said quoted by the Polish PAP news agency at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in southern France.

The talks come ahead of a crucial meeting between French President Nicolas Sarkozy, currently holding the EU presidency, and Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev.

"We agreed it with the defence minister and the prime minister gave me a green light to make a declaration about the participation of Polish forces," Sikorski said.

A European observer mission for Georgia is "practically ready", EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said earlier Friday at the foreign minister's meeting in Avignon, adding that he thought Russia would cooperate.

However he admitted that there were still some fundamental points to solve.

"The only thing is to see when, how and under what mandate," the observer mission can operate, he said.

That point will be decided at the key meeting between Sarkozy and Medvedev in Moscow on Monday and a subsequent meeting of the EU ministers on September 15, Solana added.

He would not talk about numbers, saying that too was to be decided.