(VIENNA) - The Finnish chairmanship of the European security body OSCE welcomed the partial withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia but deemed it incomplete, in a statement Thursday.

"I welcome the Russian withdrawal of their posts along the southern boundary of the former Area of Responsibility," said Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, whose country holds the current chairmanship of the Vienna-based OSCE.

"However, the OSCE monitors report that the Russian troops have not withdrawn from the Akhalgori area," in eastern South Ossetia, he added.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe currently has 28 military monitoring officers in the region.

Plans to send up to 80 more to Georgia were abandoned in mid-September following disagrements between the OSCE and Moscow over where the unarmed monitors would be deployed.

Russian forces completed a withdrawal from buffer zones around Georgia's rebel regions Wednesday, two months after a war over South Ossetia that poisoned relations between Moscow and the West, and well ahead of the Friday deadline required by a peace plan brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

On Wednesday, the Georgian Interior Ministry confirmed that Russian forces had withdrawn from the buffer zones.

But Georgia contends that Russia must also withdraw from the Akhalgori region in South Ossetia, which Tbilisi held before the conflict in August.

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