(Adds Russian and Georgian envoys to NATO) MOSCOW, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused European Union leaders on Wednesday of distorting a Russia-EU deal on the deployment of international ceasefire monitors in Georgia. Lavrov said French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso signed a document late on Monday in the Georgian capital which contradicted a deal sealed earlier that day in Moscow. The document, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, states that the EU "stands ready to deploy monitors in the whole of Georgian territory". But Lavrov said the deal Russia had signed stated the ceasefire monitors would be deployed only outside the breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia. "It is a completely unscrupulous attempt not to honestly explain to (Georgian President Mikheil) Saakashvili what commitments the EU had taken on itself, and what commitments Russia had undertaken, but to be led on a string by Mr Saakashvili," Lavrov said. "For us, what happened in Tbilisi, what was discussed in Tbilisi, has absolutely no significance," he told a news briefing. In Brussels, Georgia's ambassador to NATO said the EU personnel would deploy outside the rebel zones and merely expressed the hope that they would enter them later. "We hope that these monitors will cover all territory of Georgia, but first step it will be beyond the administrative borders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia," Revaz Beshidze told reporters. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told reporters in Brussels the EU priority was to deploy personnel by Oct. 1 to monitor the Russian withdrawal from Georgia proper. "What will happen two months from now, who knows?" he said. "The Russians have to be out by October 10 if we are deployed by October 1. This is the agreement." Solana said EU personnel were part of existing missions of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. "We hope very much that, as things develop, as things continue to move on, there would be the possibility also for the European Union to do it in the proper mission," he added, while conceding this was not discussed with Russia on Monday. Sarkozy, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, has acted as mediator between Russia and Georgia since a brief war last month in which Russia sent troops and tanks into the territory of its ex-Soviet neighbour. Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's envoy to NATO, said the EU would have to deal with the two rebel regions -- which Moscow has defied the West by recognising -- if it wanted to deploy there. "If there are no words about that in the text then they don't exist. If Solana wants to solve this issue he has to talk to South Ossetia and Abkhazia -- they are now independent states," he told reporters in Brussels. Russia has said it was morally obliged to act to stop Tbilisi committing "genocide" against the separatist regions, but Moscow's actions have drawn wide international condemnation. (Reporting by Conor Sweeney in Moscow, Yvonne Bell and David Brunnstrom in Brussels; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
A child plays with toy cars during a protest against Russia's rising petrol prices outside the regional office of state-controlled oil company Rosneft in the southern city of Stavropol September 10, ...
