Russian troops pack up in western Georgia

TBILISI: Russian forces withdrew from several positions in western Georgia on Saturday, and a Georgian official said Russia had met a deadline for a partial pullout a month after the war between the two former Soviet republics.

Russian soldiers and armored vehicles rolled out of six checkpoints and temporary bases in the Black Sea port of Poti and other areas nearby, Georgian Security Council chief Alexander Lomaia said.

"They have fulfilled the commitment" to withdraw from the area by Sept 15 under an agreement European Union leaders reached with Russia last week, Lomaia told The Associated Press. But he stressed that Georgia like the West demands a full withdrawal to pre-conflict positions.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko confirmed the withdrawal.

"Right now the withdrawal of our peacekeeping forces is happening from these posts," Nesterenko said in televised comments.

However, Lomaia said some 1,200 Russian servicemen still remain at 19 checkpoints and other positions, 12 outside South Ossetia and seven outside Abkhazia.

The presence of Russian troops still patrolling on Georgian territory more than a month after the fighting had ended was an enormous sore point between Russia and the West.

Russia's military campaign in Georgia and its subsequent recognition of Georgia's separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent nations has plunged its relations with the United States and Europe into their worst crisis since the Cold War.