French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was due to leave shortly for visits to Tbilisi and Moscow in a bid to get the two sides to agree to a ceasefire in the South Ossetian conflict, Paris said Sunday, the dpa reported.
A French Foreign Ministry spokesman told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that Kouchner would be in Tbilisi later Sunday, and would then likely travel on to Moscow on Monday.
Kouchner would make a plea for an immediate ceasefire and would offer humanitarian aid to the region, the ministry spokesman said.
France has already demanded a pullout of Georgian and Russian forces, as well as for respect for Georgia's territorial integrity.
France currently holds the presidency of the 27-nation European Union (EU). An extraordinary meeting of the EU foreign ministers to discuss the conflict might take place Wednesday in Brussels, the spokesman said. Consultations were going on among EU capitals on setting a date for the meeting.