TALLINN (AFP) -- Estonia said Monday the European Union should deploy peacekeepers to Georgia's separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in an international effort to head off conflict there.

""Peacekeeping there would be an appropriate task for the European Union,"" Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said in a statement.
""States not directly linked to the conflict in South Ossetia and Abkhazia should be involved in the peacekeeping mission there,"" Paet said.
""We need international efforts to resolve the situation,"" he said.
Paet noted he had discussed the issue with his opposite numbers from Finland and Sweden, adding that ""EU member states have a will and interest to find a sustainable solution to the crisis.""
Abkhazia and South Ossetia have enjoyed de facto independence from Georgia since a bloody conflict in the early 1990s.
Tensions over both regions have soared in recent months since Moscow announced it was establishing formal ties with the separatists.
Estonia, which like Georgia broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991, joined NATO and the European Union in 2004.
It is a staunch supporter of Georgia's efforts to build close ties with the trans-Atlantic alliance and the 27-nation EU.
South Ossetia is currently in the spotlight after the deadliest clashes there in years, with Russian warning the region is close to ""large-scale"" military conflict.
Following the outbreak of violence late Friday, which the rebels said had left six people dead, Moscow accused Georgia's pro-Western leadership of undermining peace efforts with new military maneuvers.
Georgia, which in the past has accused Moscow of stirring unrest, categorically denied it was conducting such maneuvers.
""The threat of large-scale military action between Georgia and South Ossetia is becoming ever more real,"" Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement.
""Despite various declarations by the Georgian leadership on the need for urgent measures to reduce tension, in practice Tbilisi's actions undermine these declarations,"" the statement said, urging restraint on both sides.
On Saturday the South Ossetian rebel administration said three South Ossetian soldiers and three civilians had been killed by Georgian forces the night before.
Tbilisi insisted it had opened fire only in response to firing from South Ossetian grenade launchers and denied rebel claims that Georgia had deployed snipers to attack rebel positions.
Georgia accuses Moscow of propping up the rebel leadership in South Ossetia and another separatist territory, Abkhazia, mainly through large Russian peacekeeping contingents in both areas.
Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, is embroiled in a row with Soviet-era master Moscow over his plans to join the Western military alliance NATO, which Russia vehemently opposes.
Russia's statement echoed claims by South Ossetia that Georgia had started moving artillery and other heavy weapons closer to South Ossetia late Saturday.
On its website the South Ossetian information agency said Georgia's military had opened fire on several South Ossetian villages early Sunday, though without a repeat of the injuries of the night before.
However Georgia has argued that Russia has an interest in stirring up trouble in order to hinder Tbilisi's NATO bid, and on Sunday Georgia's defense ministry rejected the claims of a military build-up.
""It's not true that Georgia is concentrating troops and armaments in the South Ossetian conflict zone,"" Georgia's defense ministry spokeswoman Nana Intskirveli said in broadcast comments.
The Russian statement rejected Georgia's diplomatic drive for the removal of Russian peacekeepers, saying current instability made any such move ""especially counterproductive and dangerous.""
Meanwhile, the South Ossetian authorities said they were evacuating women and children from vulnerable areas, transporting them across the border to the neighboring Russian province of North Ossetia.
South Ossetian education minister Zamira Dzhioyeva said a first group of 1,000 children had been sent to North Ossetia on Sunday.
""This step has been brought about by the fact that our children are in constant danger, which has a negative effect on their unformed psyches and simply threatens their lives,"" she was quoted by the information agency as saying.