MOSCOW - FRENCH President Nicolas Sarkozy will meet his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on September 8 in Moscow, Russian news agencies reported on Tuesday, after an EU summit on the Georgian crisis.

The reports cited an aide to Mr Medvedev, Sergei Prikhodko, saying Moscow intended to follow up on previous contacts with Mr Sarkozy.

The French president brokered a six-point ceasefire agreement that ended the recent five-day war between Russia and Georgia.

EU leaders on Monday froze strategic partnership talks with Moscow until Russian troops withdraw from Georgia, but shied away from sanctions at an emergency summit.

Mr Sarkozy said he would visit Moscow and Tbilisi next Monday with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana for talks on the crisis.

A French diplomat said the talks freeze could be lifted if Mr Sarkozy is satisfied on September 8 that Russian troops have withdrawn.

The Kremlin ordered tanks and troops to push back a Georgian offensive on August 7 to retake South Ossetia, a separatist region that broke away from Tbilisi in the early 1990s with Moscow's backing.

But Russian forces have remained deep inside Georgian territory, well beyond South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway region. -- AFP