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Paris: The European Union will not impose sanctions against Russia at Monday's emergency summit on the Georgia crisis, backing away from an economic confrontation with its largest energy supplier, officials said on Friday.
Moscow has for days taunted the 27-nation EU over its failure to match tough verbal condemnations of Russia's intervention in breakaway South Ossetia with action, arguing that any breakdown in relations would hurt Europe more.
EU leaders are instead due to state that ties with Russia are "under observation" and emphasise their readiness to help Georgia with reconstruction, to offer Tbilisi a free-trade deal and ease visa restrictions on its citizens.
"At the current stage, we do not expect any sanctions to be decided by the European Council," a senior French diplomat, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, told reporters ahead of the half-day summit in Brussels.
It remained unclear, however, whether a second round of negotiations on a wide-ranging new partnership between the EU and Russia would go ahead as planned on September 15-16, with some countries saying it made sense to postpone the talks.
Georgia said it would cut diplomatic ties with Russia after Moscow recognised its rebel South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions. A Russian Foreign Ministry source told RIA news agency Moscow would respond by closing its embassy in Tbilisi. "It would be very awkward to have a diplomatic relationship with Russia" while Moscow was setting up diplomatic relationships with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Georgian Foreign Minister Ekaterine Tkeshelashvili said.
Diplomats said they received signals from the Kremlin that Russia would retaliate if the EU imposed punitive measures when leaders of the bloc, which depends on Russian energy imports, meet in Brussels on Monday.
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