Russia, Georgia disagree over troop pullback

KARALETI, Georgia -- Russian troops pulled back from their positions outside Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia but held their ground in contested areas, setting the stage for more tension between the two countries that waged war in August.

Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said the Russian withdrawal was a positive move, but he added that Georgia wouldn't consider it complete until the troops leave the town of Akhalgori, near South Ossetia, and the Kodori Gorge in another Moscow-backed breakaway province, Abkhazia.

"We think that it's a step in the right direction, but it doesn't mean yet that the withdrawal is fulfilled," Utiashvili said.

Russia maintains that Akhalgori is part of South Ossetia and considers the Kodori Gorge part of Abkhazia -- claims that Georgia rejects.

Russian media carried a statement by Gen. Marat Kulakhmetov, who is in charge of Russian troops near South Ossetia, saying the pullout had been fully completed.

Moscow must pull its troops from the buffer zones surrounding the two regions by Friday under cease-fire agreements brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Earlier Wednesday, Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev said the pullout from areas outside South Ossetia and Abkhazia would be completed by midnight.

Officials at the European Union monitoring mission patrolling the buffer zone refused to comment on the latest controversy over disputed areas.

The head of the EU monitoring mission, Hansjorg Haber, called the Russian pullout as "a very positive development."

"We always proceeded from the assumption that the process would be completed by Friday, and this is confirmation of that assumption," Haber said by telephone, speaking from the buffer zone outside Abkhazia where he watched the Russian pullout.

In Washington, the State Department welcomed Russia's moves but said it was watching to see if it completed the withdrawals by the deadline.

"Russia is, in fact, starting to comply with the Sept. 8 agreement with the EU," spokesman Sean McCormack said. "It is a positive sign."

Despite the dispute, the Russian withdrawal paves the way for the return of Georgian authority to a wide swath of territory held by Moscow since the war.

The war erupted when Georgian forces launched an attack targeting Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 in a bid to take control of the region, which broke away in a war during the early 1990s. Russian troops, tanks and warplanes swiftly repelled the attack and drove deep into Georgia in Moscow's first major military offensive beyond its borders since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Georgians terrified by weeks of arson and looting they blame on Russia's South Ossetian allies lined the roads to watch the withdrawal and welcome returning Georgian police.

As dozens of armored personnel carriers, military trucks and transport vehicles rolled north past rows of destroyed homes, tensions in villages outside South Ossetia began to ease.

"Now I feel safe; I hope that life will improve," said Meri Khokhashvili, standing outside her destroyed home in the village of Kitsnisi. "I've had nightmares for the past week because I was afraid someone would attack us. At least now I can sleep safer."

The European monitoring mission could not immediately confirm Kulakhmetov's statement that Russian troops had fully withdrawn from six checkpoints outside South Ossetia. They would likely be unable to verify the withdrawal until Thursday at the earliest, said a mission spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity because of rules about talking to the media.

In France, Medvedev urged the West to leave the crisis over Georgia behind.

"It is now important to calm down and at least to give up the confrontational rhetoric," Medvedev said at a conference. "Nothing fatal or irreparable has happened. A new edition of the Cold War is not threatening us."

But the withdrawal won't resolve major disputes pitting Russia against Georgia and Western countries, which have condemned Moscow's invasion of the former Soviet republic and its recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent nations.

Even as it promised to pull troops from the buffer zones, Russia said it would keep nearly 4,000 troops in each of the separatist regions -- plans that the United States, EU and NATO say violate a cease-fire commitment to withdraw to prewar positions.

On a main road near the village of Karaleti, Russian troops finished dismantling their camp and a roadblock separating the buffer zone outside South Ossetia from Georgian-controlled territory, leaving nothing but a broken-down tractor. Two bulldozers leveled ground at the site, and Russian soldiers swept for mines before leaving.

As the Russians moved north, they were joined by other military vehicles, forming a loose column headed toward South Ossetia. Outside Karaleti, the vehicles chugged past a white, bullet-pocked car -- a reminder of the violence. The convoy passed through a heavily fortified border post manned by agitated South Ossetian soldiers brandishing Kalashnikovs from behind concrete blocks and stacks of sandbags.

EU monitors have been patrolling the buffer zone since Oct. 1 under the withdrawal agreement, a supplement to the initial cease-fire brokered by Sarkozy. Monitors in two blue light-armored vehicles accompanied the convoy as far as the de facto border. Moscow has made it clear the EU monitors are not welcome in the breakaway regions.

The governor of the Georgian region where Karaleti is located, Vladimir Vardzelashvili, said Georgian police would move into the buffer zone as the Russians leave. A white pickup truck whose open bed was packed with black-uniformed police carrying Kalashnikovs crossed the former checkpoint at Karaleti.

Russian forces occupied large portions of Georgia for weeks afterward and reinforced positions around the edges of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The war began after years of increasing tension between Russia and Georgia, whose pro-Western President Mikhail Saakashvili has cultivated close ties with Washington and pushed to bring his nation into NATO. Georgia straddles a key westward route for oil and gas from the Caspian Sea region, and has become a focus of competition between Russia and the West for regional clout.

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Associated Press writer Sophiko Megrilidze contributed to this report from Kitsnisi, Georgia.