Russia asks Georgia not to stir tensions in regions
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By Oleg Shchedrov
ASTANA, July 5 (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev urged Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Saturday to refrain from "stoking tensions" in Georgia's breakaway regions.
Medvedev and Saakashvili attended celebrations for the 10-year anniversary of the world's youngest capital, Astana, which was made the capital by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
"The president (Medvedev) drew Saakashvili's attention to the need to refrain from stoking tensions in the region and also stressed the need to continue talks with all parties involved," a Kremlin spokesman told reporters.
Georgian officials were not immediately available to comment.
Medvedev's message to Saakashvili followed a new shootout in South Ossetia and a bomb blast in Abkhazia.
Georgia's rebel regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia broke away from central rule during wars in the 1990s and are regular flashpoints for tensions with Russia, which provides financial support and has peacekeepers in both.
Tbilisi accuses Moscow of seeking to annex the regions, where the majority of the population hold Russian passports. Moscow denies such plans and in turn accuses Tbilisi of seeking to restore control over the provinces by force.
Georgia, which seeks membership of NATO and the European Union, has said it wants to replace Russian peacekeepers with an international force.
The Ossetian separatists said Georgian forces fired mortars and rocket propelled grenades at the capital, Tskhinvali, late on Thursday killing two people. Russia described the attack as an "open act of aggression".
Tbilisi said it had been forced to return fire after an attack and blamed Russia for stirring up tensions.
Earlier this week, several people were injured in a bomb blast in Abkhazia. The Abkhazian separatists blamed the blast on Tbilisi and said the region would seal itself off from Georgian-controlled territory.
Russia has said it will use weapons to "defend compatriots" in Abkhazia and South Ossetia if Georgia launched a military action against the separatists.
Medvedev's meeting with Saakashvili at the Astana celebrations, also attended by several leaders of ex-Soviet states, King Abdullah of Jordan and Turkish President Abdullah Gul, is the second in a month.
The new Kremlin leader, who took the office in May, met Saakashvili in early June in St Petersburg on the fringes of an informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent states, a loose grouping of 12 ex-Soviet republics. (Reporting by Oleg Shchredov, writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman; editing by Elizabeth Piper)
