Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Georgian counterpart
Mikhail Saakashvili met late Tuesday in efforts to mend soured
bilateral ties, but disputes remained unsolved.
This was the first one-to-one meeting between the two since
Saakashvili came to power in 2004, and it lasted about two hours
and concluded early Wednesday.
The meeting in St. Petersburg, called by Saakashvili, was
"helpful," Putin told reporters after their discussion on the
sidelines of an economic summit.
"We both think that it is impossible to call our relations in
the political sphere normal and our meeting was intended to seek a
path for resolution," he said.
Meanwhile, Saakashvili said most of the outstanding disputes
between the two countries remained unresolved, "but this does not
mean that we should not try to resolve them."
Relations between Russia and Georgia have deteriorated in recent
months amid tensions over Georgia's breakaway regions of South
Ossetia and Abkhazia and a Russian ban on imports of Georgian wines
and spirits.
(Xinhua News Agency June 14, 2006)
