Russia: rebels must have say in U.N. Georgia mission

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The United Nations must consult the leaders of Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia region about the future of a U.N. peacekeeping mission there, Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov conveyed the message to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon by telephone on Tuesday, the ministry said in a statement.

The statement said Lavrov and Ban acknowledged the need for the continuation of a U.N. observer mission in Abkhazia, which had operated there for more than a decade until Georgia's war with Russia last month.

But it added: "The Russian side stressed the need to take into account the position of Sukhumi with regard to U.N. activities in Abkhazia." Sukhumi is the capital of Abkhazia, a Moscow-backed region on Georgia's Black Sea coast.

Russia has recognized both Abkhazia and South Ossetia, another breakaway region of Georgia, as independent states, although only Nicaragua has followed Moscow's lead.

Lavrov's comments follow similar suggestions a day earlier from the Russian Foreign Ministry's spokesman who called on the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe to discuss its own mission in South Ossetia with the breakaway region.

The OSCE and U.N. observers missions inside the two breakaway regions -- which have been operating since separatist wars in the 1990s -- are seen by the Western as crucial elements in a security mechanism for Georgia after last month's war.

A September 8 ceasefire deal brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy stated that the U.N. and OSCE missions would continue their activities in the same numbers and format as before the conflict.

(Reporting by Conor Sweeney; Editing by Alison Williams)