Georgia accuses Putin of backing separatist leaders

TBILISI, Oct 1 (Reuters) Georgia today raised the temperature in a spying row with Russia, accusing President Vladimir Putin of secretly meeting Georgian separatist leaders and supporting their cause.

Georgian authorities said Putin had met the leaders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both regions of Georgia that broke free from central rule in the early 1990s, yesterday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi where he is on holiday.

''This is an open support of separatism by Russia's leadership,'' Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili told reporters.

A Kremlin spokesman said: ''We can neither confirm nor deny this information.'' Both Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh and Eduard Kokoity of South Ossetia were on a list of ''foreign guests'' at an investment forum held in Sochi on Friday, that was attended by Putin.

Russia and Georgia, a small ex-Soviet state of five million people on its southern flank, are locked in a row over Georgia's detention of four Russian army officers whom Tbilisi has accused of spying.

Russia has pulled out most of its diplomats from the Georgian capital in protest and says it has suspended a military withdrawal from two Russian army bases in Georgia.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who swept to power in the so-called ''Rose Revolution'' in 2003, has pledged to regain control over both Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Officials in Russia, irked by his drive for closer ties with the United States and European Union, and admission to NATO, say Saakashvili is planning to try to take the two regions back by force.

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