RIGA, August 15, 2008 (AFP) - Latvia's President Valdis Zatlers called Friday for international peacekeepers in Georgia, as he argued that the West must rethink its ties with Moscow.

'Russia has failed in its peacekeeping,' Zatlers told reporters in Riga.

'Peacekeepers who invade a sovereign country -- that's a failure. We must work to bring in international peacekeepers, like we (the presidents of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania) already wanted this May.'

'We must go back to the situation of August 6' before the conflict began,' he added. 'The forces must be gradually separated and peacekeepers must come in.'

Russian forces have been in South Ossetia and Abkhazia -- which broke with Tbilisi as Georgia won independence when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 -- ostensibly to keep rebel and Georgian government forces apart.

Tbilisi has long accused them of bias, much before the Russian military thrust into Georgia began last week after Georgian security forces sought to bring South Ossetia back under Tbilisi's control.

'This war clearly shows the economic interests of Russia, given the oil route,' Zatlers said, referring to a strategic crude oil pipeline that links the Caspian Sea to the Turkish Black Sea coast.

Along with a handful of other ex-communist states, notably Baltic neighbours Estonia and Lithuania, Latvia is pressing other Western nations to get tough with Russia over Georgia.

'Within the framework of international organisations we must review our relationship with Russia, review all the basic mechanisms of cooperation,' Zatlers said

'Russia is our neighbour and it has attacked a neighbour... Trust has been thrown back to least five to 10 years. It's hard to earn trust, but easy to lose it.'