European Union foreign ministers on Monday extended by a year the bloc's monitoring mission in Georgia, which keeps an eye on the fragile peace between the government and the breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgia and Russia fought a brief war over the breakaway regions in August 2008. Since then, Russia has blocked the extension of monitoring missions from other international bodies, leaving the EU's observers as the only international presence on the ground, dpa reported. Foreign ministers at their regular monthly meeting "adopted a decision extending the mandate of the European Union monitoring mission in Georgia (EUMM Georgia) by twelve months until 14 September 2011," an official EU statement announced. The observers' mission is to make sure that all sides in the conflict live up to ceasefire terms they agreed, under EU mediation, in September 2008.
