Europe may send monitors to region

BRUSSELS - European foreign ministers, eager to keep alive a truce brokered on their behalf in Georgia, united yesterday behind a proposal to send monitors to the Caucasus but would not discuss any divisions exposed by the sudden eruption of war last week.

The mandate of a European Union mission in the Caucasus has yet to be determined, and the ministers are expected to consider details next month.

France, the current president of the EU, felt flush with diplomatic triumph early yesterday, after President Nicolas Sarkozy flew to Moscow and Tbilisi and got both President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia and President Mikheil Saakashvkili of Georgia to approve a cease-fire agreement.

But the terms of the cease-fire were not disclosed, sowing confusion as to whether Russian troops could move freely on Georgian territory. Russian forces entered the city of Gori yesterday.

At an emergency meeting in Brussels, the 27 EU foreign ministers worked hard to keep their varied attitudes toward a resurgent Russia from view. They postponed discussion of possible sanctions against Moscow until their next scheduled meeting, in September.

Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister who was chairman of the meeting, insisted that "pragmatic politics," not "moral judgment" were needed to bring the fighting to a definitive end.

"We are determined to act on the ground," he said. "The European Union cannot be indifferent to this war, these massacres on our doorstep."

Kouchner asked the EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and the European Commission, to draw up concrete proposals for the mission before the next meeting.