Russia and Georgia agree peace deal

THE leaders of Russia and Georgia last night approved a plan to end fighting between the two nations and see troops move back to their original positions.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, brokered the deal after several hours of talks with his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev.

Meanwhile, aid efforts were continuing, with the United Nations refugee agency warning that nearly 100,000 people had been driven from their homes by the conflict, which erupted at the end of last week. Hundreds are said to have been killed.

Earlier Russia had said its military activity was completed.

The two Georgian breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where most residents hold Russian citizenship, have hosted peacekeeping troops from Moscow since fighting to leave Georgia in the early 1990s.

Georgia wants those Russian peacekeepers out. Its president, Mikheil Saakashvili, said his government would declare the Russians occupying forces – but Mr Medvedev insisted yesterday the soldiers would stay. "Our peacekeepers have performed – and will perform – their functions," he said. "They are key for stability in the Caucasus."

This issue remains a sticking point in the new deal, but it was agreed that the EU could send peacekeepers to Georgia.

Mr Sarkozy told a news conference in Tbilisi that the six-point peace plan could not solve the larger issues but included a pledge to begin international discussions about the future status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

"It is a political document. It is an agreement of principles ... and I think we have full coincidence of principles," Mr Saakashvili told the news conference.

The two men said the changes made had been approved by Mr Medvedev and included removing a reference to talks on the future status of South Ossetia.

It calls on Russia and Georgia immediately to end all hostilities and allow free access to the region for humanitarian aid.

Mr Medvedev said residents of the two provinces must be allowed to decide whether to be part of Georgia. "Ossetians and Abkhaz must respond to that question taking their history into account, including what happened in the past few days."

Earlier the UN and Nato called meetings on the conflict, while Poland's president, Lech Kaczynski, and leaders of four former Soviet republics flew to Georgia for a meeting of solidarity with Mr Saakashvili.

"The Russian state has once again shown its true face," said Mr Kaczynski, who was joined by his counterparts from Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine and Latvia.

Brown calls for lasting solution to crisis

GORDON Brown last night called for talks to find a permanent solution to the crisis in Georgia as Russia announced it was halting its military operations after five days of fighting.

The Prime Minister offered to send humanitarian aid to assist the thousands of people displaced in what he described as the "terrible set of events" which have rocked the Caucasus republic.

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, warned Moscow there could be no return to "business as usual" until Russia showed it was prepared to accept the international rule of law. Mr Miliband broke off his holiday in Minorca so he could attend an emergency meeting of EU ministers in Brussels.

Meanwhile, British Embassy officials in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, were trying to organise the evacuation of remaining British nationals seeking to leave the conflict zone.

Mr Brown said the halt in the fighting had come about as the result of international pressure. "What we must do now is ensure that it's a lasting ceasefire," he said.

UN aid flight lands in Georgian capital as 100,000 made refugees

A boy leaves the town of Gori following Russian attacks

ALMOST 100,000 people have been driven from their homes by the conflict in Georgia, the United Nations refugee agency said yesterday.

A UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cargo plane, carrying shelter and other aid supplies for civilians, landed in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, yesterday morning, to be followed later in the day by medical supplies flown in by the International Committee of the Red Cross, officials said.

"The first UNHCR humanitarian airlift flight carrying relief supplies for civilians affected by the conflict arrived in Georgia this morning as the estimated number of people uprooted by the fighting approached 100,000," Ron Redmond, of the UNHCR, told a news briefing.

The estimate is based on figures from the Georgian and Russian governments.

Russian officials in North Ossetia say 30,000 people from South Ossetia remain in the Russian Federation, Mr Redmond said. Georgian officials say several thousand have fled south into Georgia proper from South Ossetia. Up to 12,000 people are estimated to be displaced within South Ossetia.

A UNHCR team that reached Gori, just south of the boundary with South Ossetia, was told by local officials on Sunday that up to 80 per cent of the population had left the town, fearing further attacks.

"That would amount to some 56,000 people from Gori on the move. Officials said that most had gone toward Tbilisi and that most would return home once the threat subsided," Mr Redmond said.

Aid agencies renewed their appeal for the opening of humanitarian corridors to provide safe and unhindered access to civilians caught up in the crisis. Fighting and insecurity are preventing them from entering South Ossetia.

"The situation on the ground is deteriorating, sparking a significant movement of population," said Elisabeth Byrs, of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"We need unrestricted humanitarian access to the civilian population and to the wounded and to enable medical personnel and ambulances to take care of the dead and wounded," she said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which on Monday visited two wounded Russian pilots held by Georgian authorities, said it was seeking access to all people captured or arrested in connection with the conflict.

"One of our top priorities when it is possible will be to get safe drinking water to Tskhinvali," added an ICRC spokeswoman, Anna Nelson, referring to the South Ossetian capital.

BP closes second oil pipeline as a safety measure

Russell Jackson

THE oil giant BP yesterday shut a 90,000-barrel a day pipeline that runs through Georgia as a precautionary measure.

The firm said oil and gas pipelines that run from the Caspian Sea into Georgia had not been damaged in the recent fighting.

Another key oil pipeline, which runs from Azerbaijan through southern Georgia into Turkey, is already shut.

The closures came as the International Energy Agency warned the conflict posed a threat to key oil and gas pipelines through Georgia.

It said Georgia was of strategic importance to energy markets but that so far oil prices "had not been materially affected".

BP said normal exports via the pipelines would resume when it was safe to do so.

It closed the Western Route Export Pipeline, which takes crude oil from Baku on the Caspian Sea in Azerbaijan to the Georgian Black Sea port of Supsa, yesterday morning.

It has also stopped pumping gas into the South Caucasus pipeline that runs from the Caspian Sea, through Georgia and into Turkey, although BP said gas would continue to run through the line for about seven days.

If the conflict does not die down enough for BP to turn the gas pumps in Baku back on, Turkey will need to make up for the lost supplies by turning to Iran.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline – the world's second largest, transporting 1.2 million barrels of oil a day – has been closed since early this month following an explosion. The conflict could delay its reopening, scheduled for next month.

Troops 'fell to deaths in convoy ambush'

NIKOLAI Badry, one of the first Russian soldiers to invade the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali last week, described last night how he watched fellow soldiers fall to their deaths as his convoy was bombarded.

From his bed at the Rostov Regional Military Hospital, where he is recovering after being shot in his arm, he said: "The Georgians opened fire on us from the windows of five-storey apartment buildings on either side of the road."

One of 44 Russian soldiers being treated for wounds at the hospital, he said Russians faced heavy fire as they pushed Georgians out of South Ossetia.

"The ambush was expertly organised," he said, adding that Georgian soldiers guessed where Russian troops would enter and waited in strategic places to attack.

Mr Badry claimed Georgian soldiers had high-quality Nato equipment, but was surprised they were using locally-made Kalashnikov rifles.

He added: "You won't see any more Georgians on the territory of South Ossetia again; I don't think they will dare return."