The FINANCIAL — According to BBC, the EU's foreign policy chief has said it is planning to send hundreds of ceasefire monitors to Georgia to check Russia is abiding by a ceasefire deal.
Javier Solana made the announcement as European leaders gathered in Brussels for an emergency summit on the crisis.
Mr Solana said no decisions on imposing sanctions on Russia over its military action would be taken at the summit.
Russia has warned that further Western support for Georgia's government would be a mistake of historic magnitude.
Speaking at the EU's headquarters, Mr Solana said he hoped its members would approve the plan to send monitors to Georgia over the coming weeks, and that they could be in place by mid-October.
"It will be a mission in the hundreds, not a huge one," he said.
Deep divisions
The EU already has some 40 observers on the ground in Georgia and diplomats say up to 200 could be deployed in the coming weeks.
The BBC's Oana Lungescu in Brussels says the summit is meant to send a signal of support for Georgia, but the EU remains deeply divided on how to respond to Russia's military interventions in the country's two breakaway regions – Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Our correspondent says it is not clear if monitors will get access to so-called security zones, where Russian forces have set up checkpoints on Georgian territory.
Ahead of the summit, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged the EU to suspend long-delayed partnership pact talks with Russia.
"In light of Russia's actions we should suspend negotiations on a successor to the partnership and co-operation agreement," a spokesman for Mr Brown told reporters in London.
Mr Brown has called for a "root-and-branch review" of the EU's relationship with Russia, saying no nation should be allowed to exert an energy stranglehold over Europe.
Moscow formally recognised the independence of the two breakaway regions last week, in a move widely condemned by the West but which Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said is irrevocable.
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