Brussels/Tbilisi - The European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, confirmed Friday that Russia has withdrawn its troops from Georgia's buffer zones.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, whose country holds the EU's presidency, visited the border region around South Ossetia with the EU mission to verify the pullout on Friday. He will later meet Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

"I am happy to announce that EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM) patrols have confirmed that Russian armed forces have completed their planned withdrawal from the areas adjacent to Abkhazia and South Ossetia," Solana said in a statement.

"This withdrawal will, we hope, allow internally displaced people to return to their homes and contribute to the normalisation of living conditions in these areas," the EU's High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy said.

Under a deal brokered on September 8 by French President Nicolas Sarkozy on behalf of the EU, Russia was given until October 10 to pull out of core Georgia following the August conflict.

But Georgia objects that Russia is still violating the peace accord in its plans to keep 7,600 troops in the two breakaway regions, which have been self-governed since the early 1990s.

Georgian Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili said Russia was shirking its commitment.

"Until all the points of the accord are not fulfilled, we cannot pretend that everything is all right," she was quoted by news agency Interfax as saying on a visit to Estonia.

A top Russian military official announced Friday that Russian was beginning construction of new military bases in each breakaway region under a bilateral accords signed when Moscow recognized their independence.

Solana said he hoped the presence of the 300-strong EU mission in the buffer zones around the two enclaves would help "decrease tensions, contribute to a sense of security and enhance respect for the rule of law."

His office confirmed that Russian armed forces had dismantled 12 checkpoints and one military base in the zone adjacent to Abkhazia and five checkpoints and one signal post in the zone adjacent to South Ossetia.

Kouchner and the observer mission are to present their view from the area at a summit of foreign ministers on Monday, which will weigh on debates later in the weak over whether to restart relations with Russia, frozen since the conflict.