You're reading: Russia respects Georgian territorial integrity within today’s borders

BRUSSELS - Attempts to retrospectively "reformat" the 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia are groundless from the point of view of international law and are inappropriate from a political standpoint, Moscow's European Union Ambassador Vladimir Chizhov told Interfax in Brussels.

"The European Union’s calls for Russia to respect the territorial integrity of Georgia are an attempt to knock on an open door because Russia respects the territorial integrity of Georgia within the borders that exist today," he said ahead of a Russia-EU summit in St. Petersburg on June 3-4.

The matter is the future of the new independent states, but it is a totally different topic, he added.

"I do not think that this problem is capable of causing serious disagreements between Russia and the EU because this scenario was certainly a subject of the EU’s vigorous debate in 2008, and we appreciate the contribution the then EU leadership and Nicolas Sarkozy, the [former] president of France, which held the EU presidency at that time, made in the formulation of settlement modalities," Chizhov said.

"We have been cooperating with the EU, as well as the UN and OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe] as part of the Geneva discussions, and we view this format as useful. In my opinion, Russia, as a mediator in those efforts to resolve the conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia, as well as Georgia and Abkhazia, fulfilled its mediation functions completely," the Russian diplomat said.