Georgia/Russia missile row prompts OSCE envoy plan

VIENNA, Sep 7 (Reuters) Europe's biggest security body should appoint an envoy to deal swiftly with tensions between member states following a row over a missile between Georgia and Russia, an inquiry concluded yesterday.

Diplomats appointed by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) decided neither Russia nor Georgia was to blame for an incident on August 6 when a one-tonne missile fell into a Georgian field.

They proposed appointing a special envoy to ensure the OSCE can anticipate and respond quickly to such incidents. The envoy would monitor tense areas such as borders and have powers to investigate incidents quickly, they said.

''This would be a new mechanism to allow the OSCE to act promptly and avoid the different interpretations and misunderstandings that we have now (of the incident),'' Miomir Zuzul, head of the investigation, told a news conference at OSCE headquarters in Vienna.

He gave few other details of what powers the envoy would have and gave no indication how he or she would bring any influence to bear on Moscow and Tbilisi.

Moscow says Georgian accusations that the missile was dropped by a Russian jet amount to ''a stunt''. It has also denied an allegation that a Russian plane violated Georgian airspace and accuses the pro-West government in Tbilisi of provocation.

''This incident created a dangerous situation, and it was not the first incident or an isolated one,'' Zuzul said after presenting the team's conclusions to the 56-nation body's permanent council.

An OSCE diplomat said the body's permanent council was considering Zuzul's recommendations. Political analysts said there would be little obstacle to naming a special envoy.

Zuzul said two separate inquiries by international experts and one by Russia had yielded conflicting conclusions about what happened in the incident.

His team decided that to try to pin down the truth weeks later would be counterproductive politically.

The European Union avoided taking sides in the incident despite appeals from pro-Western Georgia, urging Tbilisi and Moscow to exercise restraint and cooperate to avoid recurrences.

The 56-nation OSCE, grouping all European states, the United States and Canada, promotes democracy, human rights and conflict prevention. One of its most sensitive roles has been monitoring elections in former Soviet bloc countries and former Yugoslavia.

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