Monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe can only patrol in Georgia next year if their mandate is changed to take account of Moscow''s concerns, Russia''s foreign minister said on Tuesday.

The OSCE said on Monday it would start shutting down its mission in Georgia on January 1 after Russia refused to extend the existing mandate because of a dispute over the status of South Ossetia, a Moscow-backed separatist region of Georgia.

"The mandate cannot function, either in the practical or the legal sense," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

Western states say OSCE monitors patrolling Georgia''s conflict zone with South Ossetia can provide early warning of any new flare-up in hostilities, and investigate allegations of rights abuses against ethnic Georgians.

Lavrov told a news conference that Russia had submitted a draft for a new mandate to the OSCE, Europe''s main democracy and human rights watchdog, and it was now up to the organization''s other members to approve it. "It is not down to us," he said.

The OSCE monitors'' mandate expires on December 31. Russia''s proposals for a new mandate have stalled because Moscow says it must acknowledge that South Ossetia is an independent state -- a status that only Russia and Nicaragua have recognized.

Britain, one of the most vocal European critics of Russia''s actions in Georgia, said it would hold Moscow in particular responsible for security in the conflict zone after it blocked the work of the OSCE monitors.

"Russia has isolated itself on this issue," British Foreign Minister David Miliband said in a statement.