(AFP) – Aug 15, 2008

TBILISI (AFP) — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a peace deal with Georgia on Saturday but his troops again underlined their grip by keeping hold of positions close to the capital Tbilisi.

Medvedev signed the French-brokered deal a day after Georgia's pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili, and a week after Russian forces invaded Georgia in support of separatists in the South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions.

"President Medvedev informed members of the security council of the Russian Federation that he had signed the document on principles" for resolving the conflict, Kremlin spokeswoman Natalya Timakova told AFP.

The deal obliges all forces in Georgia, a former Soviet republic, to withdraw to positions held prior to the Russian invasion.

However, Russian troops -- which routed Georgia's small US-trained army in the fighting for control of South Ossetia -- have the right to patrol "a few kilometres" deeper inside Georgia beyond the South Ossetia conflict zone, Georgian and French officials said Saturday.

This allowance was stipulated in a confidential letter from French President Nicolas Sarkozy to his Georgian counterpart shown to AFP here by a high-level Georgian source and later released in Paris by the Elysee Palace.

Overnight Friday, the Russians demonstrated their dominance by sending a small armoured detachment to within half an hour's drive from Tbilisi.

Troops, backed by two tanks and four armoured personnel carriers, were seen by an AFP correspondent digging in at Igoeti, on the main road from South Ossetia to Tbilisi, just 30 kilometres (20 miles) away.

They left after several hours, watched by angry Georgian police.

"We don't know what's happening," said one Georgian police officer in the area who declined to give his name. "Ask the Russians. They are not following the agreement. What do they want here?"

Separately, rebels from the breakaway region of Abkhazia, backed by Russian forces, seized control on Saturday of 13 Georgian villages and land around a power plant bordering the region, Georgia's foreign ministry said.

"Armed gangs of the Abkhazian separatist regime together with units of the Russian regular army shifted the administrative border of... Abkhazia towards the Enguri River," the ministry said in a statement.

They seized two villages in the Zugdidi region, 11 villages in the Tsalenjikha region and territory around the Enguri Hydro Power plant, the statement said.

Georgia said 182 people, including 67 civilians, were confirmed dead in parts of the country under its control -- far fewer than Moscow's overall estimate of 2,000 dead, most of them Russian citizens.

Russian troops remained in control Saturday of the main checkpoint into Gori, 60 kilometres (40 miles) northwest of Tbilisi.

They blocked journalists from entering the town, which is outside South Ossetia and was formerly a base for Georgian forces.

"They are staying and have no plans to withdraw," said Georgia's interior ministry spokesman, Shota Utiashvili.

A villager from near Gori, Otur Berikashvili, 52, said he was desperately trying to get back to the city to deliver food to his family.

"I want to go to Gori, I've left my family there. I am bringing food for them but they won't let me pass," he said.

The French ambassador to Georgia, Eric Fournier, told AFP by telephone during a rare visit inside Gori that its humanitarian situation was "absolutely dramatic" and little aid was getting through to hungry inhabitants.

Amid continued reports of atrocities, dozens of haggard Georgian captives were marched by armed guards through the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, their heads bowed and their hands behind their backs.

Many had bruised faces.

"I'm from Tbilisi. I was here working when the war broke out. I was taken in," one bearded captive said before an armed guard told an AFP reporter to leave the area. Others appeared fearful and refused to talk.

"We're getting bodies mutilated, eyes gouged, arms severed," Georgian Health Minister Alexander Kvitashvili alleged in Tbilisi. "I'm horrified. I don't know ... if it's Russians or mercenaries doing it."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declined to promise when Moscow would pull out its forces, warning that the withdrawal would take "as long as needed."

"We are constantly encountering various problems with the Georgian side and it will depend how quickly and effectively this problem will be solved," he complained.

But US President George W. Bush expressed satisfaction with Medvedev's signing, describing it as a "hopeful step".

"Now Russia needs to honour the agreement and withdraw its forces," he added from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, adding that Abkhazia and South Ossetia would remain part of Georgia.

"There is no room for debate on this matter," Bush said.

Medvedev has said the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia could not live under Georgian control again.

Russian troops entered Georgia in response to a Georgian offensive on August 7 to retake South Ossetia, which broke away from Georgia in the 1990s.

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