Georgia hopes to normalize relations with Russia: President

Georgia is interested in normalizing relations with Russia, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said on Friday.

"I do believe that Russia must be interested in pooling efforts to clear away all problems that hamper the establishment of normal relations," Saakashvili was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying.

Speaking of Russia's economic sanctions and embargoes against Georgia, Saakashvili said "it is necessary to seek a way out through a dialogue."

Saakashvili said he intended to participate in the forthcoming summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Minsk at the end of November.

"I shall certainly go to Minsk for the CIS summit, I shall meet with my CIS counterparts, the presidents of states with which Georgia maintains intensive bilateral relations. These relations are as important to us as relations with Russia," he said.

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 in September 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