United Nations:  Russia has blocked a UN Security Council draft resolution calling for an immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia, saying the document contradicts a previously agreed peace plan.

The draft, submitted Tuesday by France on behalf of the European Union and backed by the US, did not go to a vote at the Security Council, where Russia has the power of veto. Russia's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said: "The Russian Federation cannot support this... Putting it to a vote would be a waste of time."

He said the draft omits four parts of the six-point peace plan brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Moscow, while distorting the remaining two points. "Taking separate parts of the Moscow plan and reinterpreting them for political propaganda - this is not a constructive route," he said.

The Moscow plan recognized Russia's right to take necessary security measures, and did not call for an "immediate" withdrawal, Churkin said. Earlier Tuesday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who had also visited Moscow to mediate in a peace deal after Russian troops entered Georgia following Tbilisi's offensive in breakaway South Ossetia, accused Moscow of breaking its promise to withdraw troops.

Explaining the new draft, French deputy envoy Jean-Pierre Lacroix told the Security Council that while Paris still backs the plan agreed by Sarkozy and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, "in order for this plan to be implemented, there is an essential prerequisite which is the withdrawal of Russian forces".

The draft also calls for Georgian forces to return to their positions before the conflict, which broke out in the early hours of Aug 8 when Georgia began a major ground and air offensive on South Ossetia, in which Russia says 1,600 civilians were killed. The draft would have committed Security Council members to "the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognized borders".

Source : IANS