Putin accuses Georgia of terrorism, hostage-taking

MOSCOW, Oct 1 (Reuters) President Vladimir Putin accused Georgia today of ''state terrorism with hostage-taking'' in unusually harsh language suggesting a tough Russian response to Georgia's arrest of four Russian officers last week for spying.

Putin's comments followed an urgent meeting with armed forces chiefs, top ministers and the heads of intelligence services outside Moscow to discuss the worsening crisis between the two former Soviet states.

''As a result of his meeting with permanent security council members, the president termed the actions of Georgia's leadership as an act of state terrorism with hostage-taking,'' said a statement on the presidential Web site www.kremlin.ru.

Georgia's Foreign Ministry reacted by calling statements from Moscow ''an explicit threat to use a military force''.

Putin also compared Georgia's moves against the officers to the actions of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's feared secret police chief, saying they were ''a sign of the political legacy of Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria''.

Beria, an ethnic Georgian like Stalin, ran the NKVD secret police which purged millions of Soviet citizens in the 1930s and 1940s and supervised Moscow's atomic bomb programme.

Georgian parliamentarian Giga Bokeria, a close ally of President Mikhail Saakashvili, called Putin's statement ''an act of open aggression and hysteria''.

''Russia just cannot stand the fact that Georgia is an independent country,'' he told Reuters.

Georgia had earlier accused Putin of secretly meeting Georgian separatist leaders and supporting their cause.

Since the row broke last week, Russia has pulled out its ambassador from Tbilisi, evacuated dozens of officials and stopped issuing visas to Georgians.

Putin did not say what additional measures Russia might take but his use of the terms ''hostage-taking'' and ''terrorism'' suggested a tough response. Moscow has traditionally taken an uncompromising stance to whatever it sees as terrorism.

TROOP WITHDRAWAL AS PLANNED But after making his tough statements, Putin told the Defence Ministry to continue the planned pull-out of Russian troops from Georgia, news agencies quoted his spokesman Alexei Gromov as saying.

Russia's Defence Ministry said yesterday it was suspending the scheduled withdrawal, because its troops' security could not be fully guaranteed when they crossed Georgia. Russia is to pull out its troops from two local bases by the end of 2008. Putin will discuss the situation in Georgia with Russia's main political parties later this week, Gromov said.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana spoke by telephone with Saakashvili yesterday, urging him to find a rapid solution and offering assistance.

The 56-member Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), to which Georgia and Russia belong, appealed on Sunday for both sides to refrain from provocation, open a dialogue and seek a peaceful solution.

OSCE Chairman-in-Office Karel De Gucht said he was in close contact with the foreign ministers of both countries to try to reduce tensions and was ready to travel to the region if needed.

Although the arrest of the army officers last Wednesday was the trigger for the latest row, relations between Russia and its small southern neighbour had been steadily worsening for months.

Russia dislikes Saakashvili's openly pro-Western policies, including seeking NATO membership, and his criticism of Moscow.

SECRET MEETING Georgia accuses Russia of stoking separatist sentiment in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two regions of Georgia which broke free from central rule in the early 1990s and want to join Russia.

Saakashvili wants to bring them back under his sway.

Georgian authorities said Putin had met the leaders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia yesterday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Putin was working from Sochi last week.

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

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

Russian moves against Georgia are likely to cause considerable financial hardship in its poor southern neighbour.

Georgia is a nation of only 5 million people where many families rely on remittances sent back by relatives or friends working in Russia. The country also depends on Russia for gas and electricity supplies.

Reflecting the hardening Russian mood against Georgia, an opinion poll published at the weekend in the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda said 57 percent of respondents wanted to send all Georgians working in Russia back home.

Reuters