Russia has pulled troops out of all of its checkpoints inside Georgia around the breakaway region of South Ossetia, DPA QUOTED the head of the Russian peacekeeping forces as saying on Wednesday. "Troops from five (of six) posts are already in South Ossetia, and the last column with peacekeepers from the sixth observation post is on its way to Tskhinvali," Marat Kulakhmetov, commander of Russian peacekeeping forces, was quoted by news agency Interfax as saying in the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev pledged all of Russia's forces would quit the security zones extending into Georgia from its rebel regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia by midnight Wednesday. Medvedev also hailed the role of EU observers in the post conflict zone, speaking at a summit in the French town of Evian. Moscow has until Friday under an EU-brokered ceasefire to withdraw from the Georgian checkpoints occupied since its brief but violent war with the post-Soviet republic in August.
