Tbilisi and Moscow both expressed optimism for the upcoming meeting of their foreign ministers in Moscow this week to break the stalemate of strained relations.

Tbilisi said it had prepared fresh initiatives toward the settlement of issues in Georgian-Russian relations.

"The Georgian side has a new initiative for the settlement of conflicts; we will inform the Russian colleagues of our vision and will discuss prospects for the settlement of conflicts," Merab Antadze, the state minister for conflict settlement, was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying.

A regular meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Economic Cooperation Organization of Black Sea Countries opens in Moscow on Wednesday. The Russian and Georgian foreign ministers have decided to take this opportunity to have a bilateral meeting.

Bezhuashvili said in Baku on the way to the Russian capital on Tuesday that Georgia has no need for mediators in relations with Russia. "We will try ourselves to raise these relations to the level they deserve," he said.

The Georgian minister said that a visit to Moscow by President Mikhail Saakashvili is not yet planned, while expressing the hope that the heads of the two countries would meet at the upcoming summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

"I believe we all, the Georgian and the Russian sides, should work for such a meeting to be held in the foreseeable future," Bezhuashvili said.

Moscow views the upcoming visit of Bezhuashvili as a good signal, Russian Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov said on Tuesday.

"We always welcome dialogue. This is a good signal," he said, adding that "contacts per se do not resolve the problem, and it is important what the minister has to say."

"If he says that they are pulling out forces from the Kodori Gorge or that Georgia is ready to sign a peace settlement accord with Abkhazia and Ossetia, that will be a good sign and we will welcome it," Ivanov said.

"Such steps would improve the bilateral relations," he added.

Relations between Russia and Georgia have dipped since President Mikhail Saakashvili came to power in 2003 amid tensions over Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and the Caucasus Mountains nation's warming relations with the West, including with NATO.

The brief detention of four Russian military officers in Georgia on spying charges late last month triggered strong protest from Moscow and added to an already tense relationship between Russia and Georgia.

Amid the spying row, Russia slapped economic sanctions on the Caucasus nation and deported Georgians accused of staying in Russia illegally.

Source: Xinhua