The European Union and Russia backed plans yesterday for a pan-European security summit next year to ease tensions raised by the Georgia crisis and a dispute over missile systems in eastern Europe.
Nicolas Sarkozy, France's president, and Dmitry Medvedev, his Russian counterpart, said the summit could take place next June or July, bringing together the US, Russia and the EU's 27 member states under the auspices of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
The fate of the proposal is likely to hang on the stance taken by Barack Obama, the US president-elect, after he takes office in January and conducts a review of US national security and defence policy.
The French and Russian leaders were speaking after an EU-Russia summit in the French city of Nice, at which they said they had also found much common ground on the approach they would take at talks today in Washington among the G20 group of developed and emerging economies on the global financial crisis.
Mr Sarkozy, whose country holds the EU's six-month rotating presidency, and Mr Medvedev made it clear that the EU and Russia would shortly resume talks on a long-term partnership accord, but did not specify a date.
The EU postponed the talks in September because of Russia's invasion of Georgia and its recognition of the independence of the two breakaway enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Relations were put under more strain earlier this month when Mr Medvedev threatened to deploy short-range missiles in the Russian territory of Kaliningrad, near Poland, in response to the planned US stationing of an anti-missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.
"I told Mr Medvedev how concerned we were about his statement . . . and that there should not be any deployment as long as we have not discussed the terms and conditions for pan-European security," Mr Sarkozy said.
Mr Medvedev called for "a new pan-European security treaty which could be joined by all nations" and suggested that next year's summit could also be attended by Nato and the Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States.
"We should all refrain from unilateral measures that affect security. Russia has never taken steps on a unilateral basis," Mr Medvedev said. "If we share one home, then we should get together and seek an agreement."
Though the French and Russian leaders both stressed the positive tone of their discussions, their differences over Russia's recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia remained as wide as ever.
"Recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is our final decision. It is irrevocable," the Russian president said.
Mr Sarkozy defended his conciliatory diplomacy towards Russia since August, saying: "Those who sit down and talk are not the weakest but the strongest."
