Lithuania and Poland should bow to the majority of European Union member states and approve the immediate relaunch of talks on a strategic deal with Russia, despite their own security concerns, top EU officials warned Friday according to dpa. The decision to restart talks "may not be 100 per cent what your feelings are, but it's better for you to be together with all the other (EU) states in expressing a view rather than having some countries making agreements with Russia and others not," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said. "If we don't have EU-Russia negotiations, do you think anyone wouldn't negotiate with Russia? Would it be in Lithuania's or Poland's interest to have other countries reaching bilateral agreements with Russia?" he asked. Following Russia's August war with Georgia, EU leaders decided to postpone talks on the so-called "New EU-Russia Agreement," meant to give their relationship a legally-binding basis, until Russian troops pulled back to pre-conflict lines. Despite numerous reports from observers and diplomats that Russian troops have not completed such a pull-out, Sarkozy insisted on Friday that they had done so - leaving the EU open to restart talks. "Do we have to create a crisis between Europe and Russia? It doesn't seem very reasonable to me," he told a Polish journalist after a meeting with EU counterparts.
