Sarkozy urges Medvedev to pull troops from Poti

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy discussed the situation in Georgia with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday and called on Russian troops to leave Georgia's Black Sea Poti port, Sarkozy's office said.

In a statement it said the two leaders spoke by telephone and would remain in close contact over the coming days.

Sarkozy and Medvedev agreed on the urgency of setting up an international mechanism under the auspices of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to replace Russian patrols in a security zone south of South Ossetia, it added.

"Concerning the nearby region of Abkhazia, President Sarkozy insisted it was important that Russian troops present at the Poti/Senaki area should withdraw as soon as possible," the French statement said.

In Moscow, a Kremlin spokesman, Alexei Pavlov, said Medvedev had confirmed his readiness to cooperate with the OSCE "in accordance with point five of the six principles of the conflict settlement worked out by the two presidents".

The fifth point of the French-brokered ceasefire agreement says Russia's military must return to positions it held before the war over South Ossetia but allowed peacekeepers to take unspecified "additional security measures".

Interpretation of the accord is now the focus of intense diplomatic debate. Russia has created a security zone in parts of Georgia bordering rebel South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a second separatist region sited in the west of the Black Sea state.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said only peacekeepers from countries which are acceptable to South Ossetian and Abkhazian separatists could be effective in the region, and made clear they will not accept anyone apart from Russians.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; additional reporting by Oleg Shchedrov in Moscow; writing by Jon Boyle; editing by Myra MacDonald)