Russia and Germany agreed on Saturday to seek to calm tensions in Europe over the conflict in Georgia, the Russian foreign ministry said ahead of a European Union summit on the issue next week.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier "agreed on the need to put an end to attempts to use the situation surrounding Georgia... to raise tensions in Europe by speculating on non-existent threats concerning other post-Soviet countries," it said.
The two men spoke by telephone, the foreign ministry said in a statement, two days before an emergency E.U. summit on Georgia in Brussels.