An arms embargo against Georgia would top the Russian agenda at international peace talks in Geneva on October 15, Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday, dpa
reported.
"When deliberating there on how to prevent another aggression, the task of
preventing Georgia's re-militarization will be paramount," Lavrov told a
discussion group of Russian foreign policy experts, news agency Ria-Novosti
reported.
He said the embargo should stand, "at least as long as (Georgian
President) Saakashvili remains in power."
Russia is also likely to use its seat on the UN Security Council to seek
backing in warnings to the United States not to rearm its Georgian ally.
But Moscow's refusal to discuss the status of Georgia's two breakaway regions
of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and decision to keep nearly 8,000 troops there
has angered the West and raised red flags in Europe about the usefulness of
peace talks.
President Dmitry Medvedev agreed on Monday to the talks with Georgia in Geneva as the last phase of a peace accord won by President Nicolas Sarkozy, who holds
the European Union's rotating presidency.
Russia pledged to withdraw Russian troops from checkpoints deep inside the
former Soviet state to within the boundaries of Georgia's two breakaway
regions, but declared 3,800 troops would remain in each region.
On the agenda for the peace negotiations, Medvedev said Monday, was the return
of ethnic Georgian refugees to war-ravaged South Ossetia.
The UNHCR put that figure at 31,000 in a study released Friday.
While peace talks were expected to address unfulfilled commitments to a
Medvedev-Sarkozy ceasefire agreement that stopped the five-day war on August
12, Russia has drawn a line through talks on the status of Georgia's rebel regions - the last point in the pact.
Medvedev has said Russia's recognition of the two republics as independent was
was "final and irrevocable."
"We aren't going to discuss recognizing or the status of South Ossetia and
Abkhazia," Lavrov reiterated on Friday.
Nicaragua is the only state to have followed Russia's lead in recognizing the
separatist provinces, a move that infuriated Georgia and its Western allies.
But Russian media reported this week that Israel had ordered a ban on arms
sales to Georgia out of fear that Moscow may retaliate by selling higher grade
weapons to its enemies in the Middle East, such as Syria.
Russia said Israel supplied Georgia with spy drones used for reconnaissance
ahead of the conflict.