The FINANCIAL — (WARSAW) – Poland on Saturday called for an emergency EU summit to discuss the escalating conflict in Georgia.
"I have asked the French EU presidency to urgently convene a meeting of the European Council at the level of heads of government," said Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, quoted by the PAP news agency.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner had received the request, Sikorski said, adding that "it seems to me that a meeting will be convened".
"The territorial integrity of Georgia is currently being violated on an enormous scale," he said. "There are bombardments, civilians are dying, foreign military forces are on Georgian territory."
Poland, the biggest of the former Soviet bloc nations in the European Union, has been a strong supporter of Georgia's ambitions to join the EU and NATO, and Tbilisi and Warsaw maintain close relations.
With so many European leaders away from their capitals, "in Beijing or elsewhere," it was not yet possible to know the date of an emergency summit, Sikorski said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy was in Beijing on Friday for the gala opening of the Olympic Games, just as Georgia sought to reassert control over South Ossetia, prompting a Russian incursion into the breakaway region.
Sikorski said "urgent talks" between foreign ministers of the 27 EU member states were possible "in the coming days, or even in the coming hours".
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