Negotiations over extending an international monitoring mission for Georgia terminated in a dead-end Wednesday as Russia demanded that separatist South Ossetia was regarded as an independent state.
Moscow had already blocked the extension of the 16-year-old mission late last year because other members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe refused to recognize Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent, AP reports.
The 56-nation OSCE operates by consensus and opposition by one nation can keep matters from moving forward.
Greece recently circulated a compromise proposal it hoped would satisfy all sides before a June 30 deadline for the OSCE to withdraw all its monitors.
The Greek plan, among other things, calls for 30 military and civilian monitors to move freely between the town of Karaleti on Georgian-controlled territory and the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali.
Russia presented delegates with a revised version Wednesday that makes the movement of the monitors into and out of South Ossetia subject to the approval of South Ossetian separatists. While the Greek plan calls for one chief monitoring officer, the Russian proposal calls for two. It also specifies that monitors in Tskhinvali should be civilian, not military.
Anvar Azimov, Russia's permanent representative to the OSCE, said South Ossetia was willing to allow the monitors in but, as an independent country, wanted to be consulted beforehand.
Azimov also expressed dismay at any suspension of the negotiations, saying Russia was ready to be flexible and wanted to keep talking.
"We think the suspension of the talks is a mistake ... we are ready to have an agreement," Azimov was quoted by AP as saying.
The OSCE's Georgia mission tries to promote a peaceful resolution of tensions between Georgia and South Ossetia - tensions that culminated in war between Georgia and Russia last summer. It also works on human rights, economic, environmental, good governance and media freedom issues.
