NATO rules out talks with Russia (AAP)

NATO secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has ruled out resuming high-level talks with Russia, although Moscow appeared to have withdrawn troops from Georgia in line with a ceasefire accord. The alliance, whose defence ministers were meeting in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, froze the meetings last month insisting it could not do "business as usual with Russia" since its attack on Georgia in August. "It is encouraging that Russia seems to withdrawing its forces back to the pre-conflict lines," Scheffer told reporters, after a first ever meeting of the NATO-Georgia Commission at ministerial level. "But we are not in a situation where we go back to business as usual," he said. As he spoke, French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, whose country holds the European Union's rotating presidency, said Russia had withdrawn from... [read full story]