There is a ''serious'' risk of the Caucasus splitting up like Yugoslavia did, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said after Russia recognised Georgia's breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia Tuesday.
''A 'Balkanisation' on an ethnic basis of the Caucasus is a serious risk for all,'' said Frattini, who has offered to host a Georgia peace conference in Rome.
The foreign minister stressed the importance of the European Union maintaining ties with Moscow, which has frozen most cooperation with NATO, and voiced the hope Russia would keep letting NATO forces through to Afghanistan.
A closure of Russian land and air space to NATO would be a ''disastrous consequence'' of the Georgia crisis, he said.
