MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian foreign minister said Tuesday it was necessary to clarify the role of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in reporting Georgia's possible aggression against South Ossetia.

"Of course, the OSCE did not have opportunities to stop the war, but the OSCE in the form of a mission that had worked for a long time in the region was part of a mechanism to monitor agreements to stop the conflict," Sergei Lavrov said.

"Now, all these agreements have been severed by President [Mikheil] Saakashvili, but they existed at the moment the conflict started, and we are very interested in knowing the truth about what OSCE observers saw, what they reported, and to whom," he told journalists after talks with OSCE's current president, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb.

Lavrov was commenting on media reports that the OSCE failed to make it public that the South Ossetian conflict was likely.

Stubb said he had done everything possible "on a political level" to prevent the war.

"We are not a military organization, we do not have military means to prevent conflict. We use diplomacy. In this case, it did not work," he said.

Russia and Georgia fought a five-day war after Georgia attacked South Ossetia on August 8. Moscow recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states in late August.