West steps up pressure on Russia

PARIS  - Western powers ratcheted up the pressure on Russia Sunday to comply with the peace deal it signed with Georgia and pull its troops out of the ex-Soviet republic.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and German Chancellor Angela Merkel all urged Moscow to honour its promise to begin the troop withdrawal on Monday.

Sarkozy warned his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev by phone Sunday of the “serious consequences that a failure to quickly and fully implement the deal would have on relations between Russia and the European Union.”

Medvedev on Saturday signed the peace deal - brokered by Sarkozy, whose country holds the EU rotating presidency - a day after pro-Western Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, and a week after Russian forces invaded Georgia in support of separatists in the South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions.