Georgian, Russian leaders to try to break the ice

TBILISI, June 11 (Reuters) Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili meets Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Tuesday in an attempt to defuse tensions between his tiny nation and the giant northern neighbour which it accuses of backing separatists.

Recent months have seen a bitter war of words between the Caucasus nation of 4.5 million and Russia which has banned Georgian wines, mineral water and fruit after earlier rows when pipeline blasts cut gas supplies to Georgia in mid-winter.

Georgian wines and Borjomi mineral water were essential for any banquet in Russia, and top Georgian officials have denounced the ban as politically motivated, aimed to punish the nation for its pro-Western policies.

Various estimates show that Georgia may lose 0 million or more from the sanctions this year.

Officials in Moscow say the goods are of poor quality and threaten Russians' heatlh.

Outspoken and impulsive, Saakashvili has irked old imperial master Moscow by saying that Georgia aspires for NATO and European Union membership. He has also accused Russia of backing separatists in Georgia's Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions.

But last weekend Saakashvili called Putin, asking him for a meeting ''to discuss a whole range of issues in bilateral relations''. The leaders' first one-to-one talks since 2004 will take place in Putin's native city of St Petersburg on June 13.

Russia said Putin had agreed to hold the meeting after speaking to the Georgian leader by telephone.

Georgian analysts expect no major breakthrough in the talks.

''Georgia's tense relations with Russia are in a deadlock ... This meeting is unlikely to result in a serious breakthrough because the two sides are not ready for compromises,'' Gocha Tskitishvili, an independent analyst, told Reuters.

PRO-MOSCOW REBELS After he called Putin, Saakashvili told his security council that he wanted ''very close, very tight and very constructive relations with Russia''. He stressed however that such ties must be based on ''the absolute inviolability of Georgian territory and peaceful restoration of Georgia's territorial integrity''.

This statement and the call to Putin came a day after Russia's foreign ministry said it respected the principle of territorial integrity but also recognised the right of Georgia's de facto independent South Ossetia region to self-determination.

Saakashvili, propelled to power by 2003 pro-Western ''Rose Revolution'' protests, pledges to regain Abkhazia and South Ossetia which broke away from Georgian rule in the early 1990s.

''Resolving the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia will be the most difficult and painful of the issues to be discussed at the meeting with Putin,'' Archil Gegeshidze of the Georgian Foundation of International Studies think-tank, told Reuters.

Putin will host a G8 summit of the main industrial nations next month, and some Georgian analysts say his readiness to meet Saakashvili may be publicised by the Kremlin as a gesture of goodwill towards its critical pro-Western neighbour.

But how big concessions is Saakashvili ready to make to move a step closer to reintegrating the two pro-Moscow rebel regions? ''Georgia's leadership is unlikely to cede any of its foreign policy priorities,'' said independent analyst David Darchiashvili.

''That's why the talks will be very uneasy.'' REUTERS CH KN1615