Russia urges G8 not to touch ex-Soviet conflicts

MOSCOW, June 22 (Reuters) Russia today urged foreign ministers of the G8 group of industrialised nations not to raise the sensitive issue of so-called ''frozen'' conflicts in ex-Soviet states when they meet next week before the St Petersburg summit.

''We are ready to discuss any acute international problems with our partners,'' Interfax news agency quoted foreign ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin as saying.

''But we deem it reasonable to limit the G8 agenda by issues on which the group can reach agreement ... rather than engage in parallel talks, moreover at such a high level,'' he added.

Interfax said Kamynin was referring to reports that some of the G8 ministers and leaders were planning to raise with Russia the situation in Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Moldova's separatist Dnestr province.

Such ''frozen'' conflicts are left over from the collapse of the Soviet Union, whose internal borders were often drawn regardless of ethnic lines.

Foreign ministers of the United States, Russia, Britain, Italy, France, Germany, Canada and Japan meet in Moscow on June 29 to prepare for a full-blown summit of their leaders in St Petersburg on July 15-17.

Georgian and Moldovan complaints that Russia is using its peacekeeping mission in the regions to encourage separatism are a key argument fuelling Western suspicions that Moscow's policy towards ex-Soviet states is becoming increasingly imperialistic.

Russia rejects the charges, which have become more shrill since Georgia and Moldova, together with Ukraine, declared their intention of departing from traditional reliance on Moscow in favour of pro-Western orientation.

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