French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday pressed Russia to honor its pledge to withdraw troops from Georgia and warned the Kremlin that the European Union is united on this position, the Associated Press reported. During the talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Sarkozy's EU delegation also was pushing for a quick deployment of several hundred EU monitors to Georgia. But just after Sarkozy arrived Monday morning, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Moscow is against an independent EU monitoring mission in Georgia. Speaking at the start of his talks with Medvedev, Sarkozy warned the Russian leader that the EU nations are «united» in their stance. «They want peace, they want confidence, they want good neighborly relations,» said Sarkozy, whose country holds the EU presidency. «And in the same way as our Russian friends, they want to defend our convictions. The European Union also has its principles and convictions.»
