Britain pushes for review of EU-Russia relations

Britain said yesterday it would seek a review of the European Union's ties to Russia following Moscow's intervention in Georgia, but Russia said European self-interest would temper the bloc's response.

In an interview with Russian TV stations Mr Medvedev said Russia would not backtrack on its decision to recognise Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

"We have taken our decision and we took it irrevocably," Mr Medvedev said.

EU leaders meet in Brussels today for an emergency summit to decide what action to take after Russian sent troops and tanks into pro-Western Georgia and defied the West by recognising the two rebel regions.

Mr Medvedev faces growing condemnation from the West, which accuses Russia of occupying parts of Georgia, while the Kremlin said it acted to prevent what it called genocide against the separatist regions.

US President George W. Bush discussed Georgia in a telephone conversation with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, seen as one of the EU leaders most sympathetic to Russia. Mr Medvedev also spoke by phone with Mr Berlusconi.

Georgia last week severed diplomatic ties with Russia and said late on Saturday it had pulled out of a long-standing peacekeeping deal that Moscow has used to justify the presence of its troops inside Georgia.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would be pushing for a "root and branch" review of ties with Russia when he joins other EU leaders for the summit.

"In the light of Russian actions, the EU should review - root and branch - our relationship with Russia," Mr Brown wrote in a comment published in Britain's Observer newspaper. He made no mention of possible EU sanctions against Russia.

Referring to Russia's role as a supplier of more than a quarter of Europe's gas, which some analysts say makes tough EU action unlikely, Mr Brown said: "No nation can be allowed to exert an energy stranglehold over Europe."

There was pressure too from other parts of the EU, with a foreign policy spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrat party saying Russia should be suspended from the Group of Eight rich nations.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said the EU should create an "Eastern Partnership" to help ex-Soviet states such as Georgia that want to pull out of Moscow's orbit.