MEIENDORF CASTLE, Russia - (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Russia on Monday to seek a lasting peace deal for Georgia that will persuade Russia to pull its troops out of positions deep inside the ex-Soviet state.
Russia drew Western condemnation when it fought a brief war with Georgia last month, sending tanks and troops deep into its neighbor's territory to defeat a Georgian attempt to retake its breakaway South Ossetia region by force.
Tensions between Russia and the United States over Georgia flared again at the weekend, with the Kremlin attacking the presence of NATO warships in the Black Sea and U.S. foe Venezuela saying it planned joint naval exercises with Russia later this year in the Caribbean Sea.
Sarkozy arrived in Moscow four weeks after he brokered a ceasefire ending the war, the Russians' first involvement in combat abroad since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
But a dispute remains over the presence of Russian troops in buffer zones around South Ossetia and the second separatist region of Abkhazia. The Kremlin says they are legitimate peacekeepers, while the West calls them occupiers.
The European Union has warned it will suspend talks on a new partnership pact unless Moscow pulls back its forces. But the 27-member bloc has limited scope for influencing the Kremlin because it depends on Russia for its energy supplies.
"The aim is clear: as big a deployment as possible so the Russians can leave as quickly as possible," one French official told reporters at a weekend EU foreign ministers meeting.
