BERLIN (AFP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday Berlin shares Georgia's concern about Russia's actions in the breakaway region of Abkhazia where tensions between the two ex-Soviet states have soared.
"Like Georgia, Germany is concerned about the steps that have been taken by Russia," Merkel said after talks with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
She said Germany was ready to help negotiate an end to the standoff and called on Tblisi and Moscow "to remain calm".
Saakashvili told reporters that he was ready to work with Moscow to defuse the crisis and wanted to forge "a partnership" with Russia, whom he accuses of seeking to annex Abkhazia.
It marked the second time in two days that the Georgian leader has called here on Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to resolve the dispute over the rebel Georgian region on the Black Sea that broke away in the 1990s.
"He must now decide which way he is going to go. Are we going to play Cold War politics or are we going to see a more modern, Europeanised, open Russia," he said on Tuesday after a speech to the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin.
"I think he has a more thoughtful, gentle style but on the ground we have not seen any change yet," Saakashvili said, comparing Medvedev to his predecessor Vladimir Putin.
Sabre-rattling between Georgia and Russia over Abkhazia has grown louder since April when Moscow announced it would establish formal ties with the separatist Abkhasian government.
Russian soldiers are deployed in Abkhazia as part of a ceasefire deal signed after the separatist war and Moscow has recently sent in hundreds of extra troops, saying that Tbilisi was preparing an assault.
Tensions grew this month when Georgia detained Russian soldiers near the sensitive border between Abkhazia and the rest of Georgia.
Medvedev issued a sharp rebuke and the Russian military's deputy chief of staff, General Alexander Burutin, threatened to use force if this happened again.
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