Leaders clash over EU Georgia summit seats

WARSAW, Poland, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- Leaders in Poland and Finland are wrangling over which officials are sent to attend the European Union meeting Monday on the Georgian crisis.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski, a conservative, is angling to attend the Brussels meeting, which is aimed at forming a common European position on the Russia-Georgia conflict, in the place of the more liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the EU Observer reported Friday.

President's aide Piotr Kownacki told media outlets that Kaczynski's office implies that he should be the one to head the delegation, while Deputy Prime Minister Grzegorz Schetyna said the president's attendance at the meeting would not help matters.

The president and prime minister are scheduled to meet Friday to resolve the issue.

Meanwhile, Finnish President Tarja Halonen announced her intention to attend the meeting, taking a seat that would have instead gone to Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, who heads the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe. The organization has been working closely with the EU to find a resolution to the Georgian crisis and the foreign minister has been heavily involved in the process.

Halonen said she would seek an extra seat at the meeting for Stubb but leaders in Brussels said adding another seat for the Finnish delegation, which also includes the country's prime minister, would be "impossible."