Efforts to send an observer mission to monitor troop withdrawals in Georgia were set to dominate two-day EU foreign ministers' talks that started Friday, according to AP. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, the meeting host, started the talks in Paris, inviting his 26 European counterparts to travel together on a high-speed train to the southern French city of Avignon. On the train, diplomats said, the ministers were holding informal talks on how many monitors they could send _ and when _ to the ex-Soviet republic. The EU ministers are also looking at what additional pressure they can put on Moscow to persuade it to withdraw its forces from Georgia. French President Nicolas Sarkozy who will go to Moscow and Tbilisi next week to see whether Georgia and Russia are abiding by the cease-fire plan signed with Georgia.
