(BRUSSELS) - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, arriving for a meeting of EU foreign ministers Monday, said he hoped talks with Russia could soon resume, but warned it would not be "business as usual".

Most EU member states want to see the resumption of partnership talks with Moscow that were suspended after the military conflict between Russia and Georgia in August.

But Poland and Lithuania are opposed, saying Moscow has failed to comply with the terms of a peace deal which ended the fighting in the Caucasus.

"I think there is a possibility," that partnership talks could soon resume, said Solana as he arrived for the talks in Brussels, adding: "I hope very much that will be the case."

"To have a relationship with Russia which has a framework is better for the interests of the European Union than to have relationship outside the framework," he said.

But he added: "That doesn't mean we are going to have business as usual. It will not be as usual."

While Russia has pulled its troops out of the heart of Georgia, it still has several thousand massed in the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Moscow has recognised as independent.

"There is no doubt that there are troops in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, that they have recognised (by Moscow) as countries," Solana told reporters.

"Those forces are not peacekeepers. The peacekeepers that were there are no longer there, but there are now Russian forces in numbers that are above the numbers there were as peacekeepers."

Most EU member states would like to see the wide-ranging partnership talks resumed before the end of the year, with hopes that an announcement can be made at an EU-Russia summit in Nice, on the French Riviera, on Friday.

The European Commission says it has a mandate for the talks and that, formally, no unanimous agreement among the 27 EU member states is needed to relaunch them, although it would prefer a united front.

URL: http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1226307722.89