Russia-Georgia talks suspended until November

GENEVA (Reuters) - Talks to ease the conflict over Georgia's Moscow-backed breakaway regions were suspended until next month on Wednesday after diplomats failed to get Russia and Georgia to agree on who was allowed to take part.

The sticking point was whether representatives from South Ossetia and Abkhazia should be allowed to participate and how.

Russia and Georgia fought a five-day war in August and remain at odds over the two breakaway Georgian provinces that Moscow recognizes as independent states under its protection.

"The Russians and the Georgians were not in a formal meeting at the same time, they weren't in the same room at the same time," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried told a briefing.

The United States, which sees Georgia as an ally in the volatile Caucasus region, also took part in the talks.

Pierre Morel, the EU special envoy for Georgia, said new talks had been provisionally set for November 18 in Geneva.

The European Union, United Nations and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) had organized the one-day meeting, which they had hoped would lead to talks every two weeks to build confidence and help resolve the conflict.

The talks were due to deal with compliance with the ceasefire, security issues, the return of internal refugees and human rights, a U.S. statement said.

Russian and Georgian officials said they were willing to return for another attempt at discussions, but it is clear the organizers have their work cut out to get them to sit down and talk to each other.

"There are always difficulties when you start such a process," Morel told a separate briefing.

BLAME GAME

Feverish diplomatic efforts to find an acceptable format for the talks included a news blackout and a ban on photographers from taking pictures of the delegations as they entered the U.N. European headquarters in Geneva.

In Brussels -- where international donors will gather on Monday to try and meet Georgian reconstruction needs put at $3.25 billion -- Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili blamed Russia for the failure of the first day's talks.

"Russia has just walked out of the Geneva talks ... which basically means that Russia has no interest whatsoever at this stage in any diplomatic process," he told reporters in Brussels.

But the head of Russia's delegation, Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin, called Saakashvili's version of events "a lie."

"The Georgian version just doesn't hold water," he told a briefing. "We deplore the absence of the Georgian delegation but we did not see it as tragic."

On Wednesday, EU foreign ministers deferred a decision at a meeting in Brussels on whether to restart talks with Russia on a wide-ranging partnership accord that were suspended due to the Georgian incursion.

Some EU states have linked resuming the talks to progress in Geneva and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said he expected the issue to be taken up again next month.

Fried blamed the impasse on the representatives of the breakaway regions, who he said wanted the same status as the national delegations. "Sadly we never got beyond procedural and organizational issues because the South Ossetians and Abkhazians walked out," he said.

Georgian officials said they had tried to work with the EU to find an acceptable compromise allowing officials from Abkhazia and South Ossetia, whom they termed "Russian proxies," to take part in the talks, for instance at an informal level.

But they also wanted community representatives from those regions who remain loyal to Tbilisi to be present.

"We're here to talk with the Russians and if the Russians choose to talk with us or not to talk with us we will be religiously coming to Geneva for the deliberations," Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze told a briefing.

Months of skirmishes between separatists and Georgian troops erupted into war in August when Georgia sent troops and tanks to retake South Ossetia, which threw off its rule in 1991-92. Russia responded with a powerful counter-strike, driving the Georgian army out of South Ossetia.

Moscow's troops then pushed further into Georgia, saying they needed to prevent further Georgian attacks.

The U.N.'s top court, the International Court of Justice, on Wednesday ordered Russia and Georgia to ensure the security of ethnic groups in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and adjacent areas of Georgia, and refrain from sponsoring racial discrimination.

(Additional reporting by Francois Murphy, David Brunnstrom and Ingird Melander in Brussels and Aaron Gray-Block in The Hague)

(Editing by Louise Ireland and Angus MacSwan)