Responding on 9 February to an address delivered earlier that day by Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili to the OSCE\'s Permanent Council in Vienna, U.S.Ambassador to the OSCE Julie Finley acknowledged that the Joint Peacekeeping Force deployed in the South Ossetian conflict zone could function more effectively, according to a press release on the website of the U.S. Mission to the OSCE (http://www.osce.usmission.gov). At the same time, Ambassador Finley noted that a request for the peacekeepers to leave before a substitute force is available to replace them could destabilize the situation. She called on Georgia to contribute its full complement of forces to maintain the proper balance within the Joint Peacekeeping Force, which includes Georgian, Russian, and Ossetian contingents, \"in coordination with existing mechanisms, in full transparency, and in accordance with previous agreements.\" (RFE/RL)