(BRUSSELS) - The European Union, United States and NATO led calls Friday for an end to violence in South Ossetia amid EU efforts to secure a ceasefire and fears of all-out war between Russia and Georgia.

The appeals came as Georgia urged world leaders to press Moscow to stop "direct military aggression" in its breakaway territory.

The European Union's French presidency meanwhile said in a statement it was "working towards a ceasefire so as to avoid an extension of the conflict."

The United States said it was sending an envoy to South Ossetia to join international mediation efforts and called for an immediate ceasefire.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe, travelling with President George W. Bush in Beijing, urged "all sides" to stop the violence and engage in direct talks "to resolve this matter peacefully."

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer voiced similar sentiments, calling on all sides to bring "an immediate end of the armed clashes and direct talks between the parties," a plea echoed across western Europe.

Members of the UN Security Council, where Russia sits as a permanent veto-wielding member, met at Moscow's request late Thursday but failed to agree on a statement urging both sides to renounce the use of force.

"We regret it has not yet been possible to agree a Security Council statement on this issue," Britain's deputy ambassador Karen Pierce said. A Belgian diplomat said the emergency talks would resume later Friday.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, through a spokesman, expressed alarm at the violence and joined the chorus calling for the warring sides to refrain from any action that could further inflame the situation.

A European Commission spokesman said the European Union was "extremely concerned at the reports of heavy fighting in the South Ossetian conflict zone and deplores the loss of life".

France, which holds the rotating EU presidency, reaffirmed "its attachment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognised borders".

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Petras Vaitiekunas was headed Friday to Georgia to take stock of the crisis, the ministry said, following talks with his counterparts in fellow EU-states Finland, Latvia, Poland, Sweden and Ukraine.

In a separate statement, the foreign ministry in Vilnius -- a staunch ally of Georgia -- rebuked Moscow over its role in South Ossetia, saying recent events "cast doubts" on its peacekeeping mission there.

A Russian army convoy entered South Ossetia on Friday and Russian planes attacked a Georgian military base, reports said, after Georgian forces pounded the capital of the breakaway province.

Calls for an immediate end to hostilities were also swiftly declared in Britain, Germany, Turkey and elsewhere, as well as from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

Turkey said the "grave" developments in South Ossetia represented "a conflict environment that could threaten regional peace and security."

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, which heads a loose alliance trying to cool tensions between Moscow and Tbilisi over Abkhazia, another breakaway Georgian republic, called for prudence and moderation.

The current chairman of the OSCE, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, warned the fighting "risks escalation into a full-fledged war."

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt expressed his "profound concern", adding: "A great responsibility rests on Russia and I expect Russia to act constructively and with restraint."

Terry Davis, secretary general of the Council of Europe, the continent's main rights watchdog, said he was "very concerned" at the escalating violence.

The International Committee of the Red Cross meanwhile called for a "humanitarian corridor" to be opened in South Ossetia to allow ambulances to evacuate the wounded.

"We're very concerned about the humanitarian impact ... ambulances cannot move, hospitals are reported to be overflowing, surgery is taking place in corridors," a spokeswoman told journalists in Geneva.

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