EU to launch Georgia-Russia conflict probe

(BRUSSELS) - The European Union is to launch an inquiry into the causes of the Russia-Georgia conflict, papers seen Friday show, amid growing recriminations against Tbilisi over its role in fanning the flames.

The independent international inquiry mission, an EU initiative, will be headed by Heidi Tagliavini, a Swiss former UN special representative to Georgia, according to an official EU document seen by AFP.

Her nomination is set to be approved by EU ambassadors next week before being formally agreed at an EU foreign ministers meeting on December 1, a European diplomat said Friday.

Tagliavini will then choose her team of "recognised" experts, including historians, military, jurists and rights experts, according to the text.

The mission's official objective will be "to look into the origins and the unfolding of the Georgia conflict."

The mini-war, which started and finished in August, began in and around the Georgian breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Russia now controls and recognises as independent states.

The EU mission's "geographical and time limits will be sufficiently broad to determine the possible causes," the experts' text said.

The mission will have eight months to complete its work, with conclusions to be presented on July 31, 2009. An earlier version of the plan was for just a four-month operation.

The final report will be presented to both Georgia and Russia as well as the EU nations, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations.

The launch of the operation comes after several Western leaders, notably, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, criticised the actions of the government of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, while speaking of a disproportionate Russian "reaction".

On November 7 The New York Times cited independent monitors disputing Georgia's claim that the war broke out with Russia in August when it defended against separatist and Russian attacks in South Ossetia.

The New York Times said accounts from the military observers suggest that inexperienced Georgian forces unleashed indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire at the breakaway South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali on August 7.

Under such circumstances, civilians, Russian peacekeeping troops and unarmed monitors were exposed to danger, it added, citing accounts it described as neither conclusive nor broad enough to settle rows over how the war started.

Georgia has portrayed itself as the victim of both Russian and South Ossetian aggression. On August 6, Georgia and South Ossetia accused each other of having opened fire on villages in the region.

On August 7, amid full-scale fighting, Russia and Georgia traded accusations of aggression in South Ossetia, which broke away from Georgia in the early 1990s and whose unrecognised government is supported by Moscow.

The brief conflict, which ended thanks to an EU-brokered ceasefire deal on August 12, followed an increasingly bitter war of words between the two sides and movements of Russian troops in South Ossetia, stemming in part from the former Soviet Republic's desire to join NATO.

The EU has since deployed 300 observers in Georgia, However that mission is not being allowed into either South Ossetia or Abkhazia.