Georgia Stands Firm Ahead of Promised Russian Troop Withdrawal

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MOSCOW — Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili vowed Sunday that his country would not give up the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. This comes as Russia's president said troops would begin pulling out of Georgia on Monday, but made no mention of leaving the separatist province at the heart of the conflict between the countries.

At a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday, Saakashvili said Georgia would never give up a single square mile of the country's territory. Saakashvili said that Georgia wanted the withdrawal of Russian troops, set to begin Monday at noon, to be monitored by international organizations.

Merkel also called on Russia for a "very fast, very prompt" withdraw in what she called an "urgent matter."

The latest statements from Georgia and Russia came as FOX News observed an increased Russian military presence in Georgia proper, with at least one hundred tanks, armor personnel carriers and other vehicles seen moving deeper into the region.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev pledged to being to pull back Russia troops on Monday but suggested they might remain in separatist South Ossetia.

Western pressure has been increasing on Moscow to withdraw its forces under a cease-fire deal signed by Medvedev and Saakashvili. The United States and France have already accused Russia of defying the truce between the ex-Soviet neighbors, as Russian tanks and troops roamed freely across a wide swath of Georgian territory.

"It's not acceptable, the fact that Russian troops are in Georgian cities," Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice told FOXnews Sunday morning. "The fact that they are at the port of Poti back and forth in that port along the east-west highway, is simply not acceptable and it has nothing to do obviously with the conflict that began in South Ossetia."

The European Union-backed cease-fire agreement calls for Georgian and Russian troops to withdraw to the positions they held before fighting broke out Aug. 7.

Medvedev told French President Nicolas Sarkozy in a telephone conversation Sunday that Russian army troops will retreat toward the de facto Georgia-South Ossetia border on Monday, according to a Kremlin statement.

The troops will head toward a border between Georgia and South Ossetia that was delineated in a 1999 peacekeeping agreement signed by all parties, the Kremlin said. The statement did not say that the troops will return to Russia.

A Russian general on the ground, Maj. Gen. Vyachislav Borisov, told the Associated Press the "planned withdrawal" from the disputed province was already under way. But in Moscow, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release his name to the media, denied Sunday that troops were leaving South Ossetia.

A spokeswoman for the South Ossetian defense ministry, Irina Gagloyeva said South Ossetian police were replacing Russian peacekeepers in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali.

In Georgia proper, Russian troops still surrounded the strategic central city of Gori and the western city of Senaki and its air base. Both cities are on the main east-west highway that slices through two Georgian mountain ranges, giving Russia effective control of the main artery running through the western half of the country.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel flew into the Georgian capital of Tbilisi Sunday for more talks on the 11-day-old conflict. The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Jakob Kellenberger, was also arriving to check on the plight of thousands of refugees uprooted by the fighting.

President Bush warned Saturday that Russia cannot lay claim to the two separatist regions in U.S.-backed Georgia — South Ossetia and Abkhazia — even though their sympathies lie with Moscow.

Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said Russia not withdraw troops until Moscow is satisfied that security measures allowed under the agreement are effective.

Lavrov has previously said that Georgia can "forget about" South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which broke from Georgian government control in early 1990s wars.

Georgia's Foreign Ministry accused Russian army units and separatist fighters in Abkhazia of taking over 13 villages and the Inguri hydropower plant on Saturday, shifting the border of the Black Sea province toward the Inguri River. Russia on Sunday confirmed that its peacekeepers took over the power plant.

The villages and plant are in a U.N.-established buffer zone on Abkhazia's edge, and it appeared the separatists were bolstering their control over the zone after they and their Russian patrons forced Georgians out of their last stronghold in Abkhazia earlier this week.

A large anti-Russian banner hung Sunday in front of the Parliament building in central Tbilisi: "No war, Russia go home."

"We have no guarantee that the Russians will keep to their agreement," one worried Tbilisi resident told an AP television crew. She did not give her name for fears of reprisal.

Georgia, bordering the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia, was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. Under the leadership of the pro-Western Saakashvili, George has sought NATO membership and has emerged as a proxy for conflict between an emboldened Russia and the West.

The conflict erupted after Georgia launched a massive barrage to try to take control of South Ossetia. The Russian army quickly overwhelmed its neighbor's forces and drove deep into Georgia, raising fears that it was planning on a long-term occupation.

Russia views the growing relationship between the U.S. and Georgia as an encroachment on its traditional sphere of influence. The fighting came amid U.S. efforts to close a deal on a missile shield based in former Soviet satellites in Europe, an issue already damaging ties with its former Cold War foe.