BRUSSELS (AFP) — EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Thursday that strategic partnership talks with Russia, frozen after the Georgia conflict, were unlikely to resume until next month.
The European Union's current French presidency had hoped to announce, at a summit in Brussels Wednesday and Thursday, the resumption of talks with Russia for a new partnership and cooperation agreement (PCA).
"The PCA will resume once the analysis, the evaluation that is being done by the Council (of ministers) and (the European) Commission is finished," said Solana as he arrived for the second day of the summit.
"I hope very much that that will be before November 14," he added, referring to an upcoming summit with Russia.
The negotiations, which began in July, were frozen at the beginning of September until Russian forces withdrew to the positions they held before the outbreak of hostilities with Georgia in early August.
Several countries, including Britain, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden have said it is too early to re-start the talks.
They want to wait until the EU-Russia summit in Nice, France on November 14 to see how tensions in the Caucasus region play out, and the way international talks evolve.
After many delays, the EU and Russia launched negotiations in July for the new strategic partnership pact, which aims to update and upgrade the framework for their relations.
Currently, their relations are governed by a partnership accord that dates from 1997, when Russia was still suffering economically from the break-up of the Soviet Union.
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