U.S. official sees no sign of Russian Georgia pullout

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A senior U.S. official said on Monday there were no signs yet that a planned Russian pullout from the conflict zone in Georgia had begun.

"Thus far there isn't any evidence we've seen," the official told reporters ahead of an emergency meeting of NATO foreign ministers on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Let's hope that this is a technical slowness in getting implemented... let's see the Russians begin to pull back. That's what we'd like to see, but we haven't seen it yet," the official said.

Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy head of the Russian military's General Staff, told reporters Russian forces started to withdraw from the conflict zone earlier in the day.

Under a peace deal, Russia and Georgia agreed to pull their forces back to positions held before this month's outbreak of violence over Georgia's separatist region of South Ossetia.

(Editing by Charles Dick)