EU calls on Russia to pull out of disputed Georgian village

(TBILISI) - European ceasefire monitors in Georgia on Friday called on Russia to withdraw from a disputed village on the de-facto border with the Moscow-backed rebel South Ossetia region.

The European Union Monitoring Mission said Russia was violating a truce deal that ended last year's Georgia-Russia war by keeping troops at a checkpoint in Perevi, a mainly ethnic Georgian village on South Ossetia's western border.

"This is a clear breach of the six-point (ceasefire) agreement. I very much hope that the Russian authorities will feel able to meet their commitments," mission head Hansjorg Haber said in a statement issued on the eve of the first anniversary of an initial withdrawal of Russian forces from the village.

Russian forces withdrew from the village on December 12 last year but returned in force the next day, forcing out Georgian police.

Tbilisi has accused Russia of violating the ceasefire by refusing to return its troops to positions held prior to the conflict, including in Perevi, in the disputed Akhalgori district of South Ossetia and in the Upper Kodori Gorge in Georgia's other rebel region, Abkhazia.

The war in August 2008 saw Russian forces pour into Georgia to repel a Georgian military attempt to retake South Ossetia, which had received extensive backing from Moscow for years.

Under an EU-brokered ceasefire, Russian forces later mostly withdrew into South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Moscow recognised as independent states.

About 225 EU observers are deployed in Georgia to monitor the ceasefire.