The Kremlin on Sunday promised to start withdrawing combat troops from Georgia on Monday as Western pressure mounted on Russia to quit the ex-Soviet republic.

President Dmitry Medvedev told his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy that Russian regular forces "from tomorrow... will begin withdrawing," the Kremlin said in a statement.

However, the troops will leave behind a peacekeeping force of unspecified size that Georgian officials worry could turn into an open-ended Russian military presence.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in the embattled country Sunday to repeat Western calls for Moscow to respect the withdrawal agreement.

The French-brokered deal is meant to conclude a five-day war in which Russian forces drove off a Georgian army assault against Moscow-backed separatists in the region of South Ossetia.

In Gori, a Russian-occupied town beyond the conflict zone of separatist South Ossetia, the commanding general said a switch from regular troops had already begun.

"The Russian troops are starting to pull out and Russian peacekeepers are coming in," General Vyacheslav Borisov told AFP.

But a senior Georgian official cast doubt on whether the Russian move was genuine.

"This is just a redeployment, they have pulled out from their bases but they are still all over the place. You can see that," Georgian National Security Council Secretary Alexander Lomaia told journalists in Gori.
"It does not matter which uniforms the Russians have," he added.

Russian forces continued to man positions along the main road from Tbilisi to Gori, including at a checkpoint in Igoeti, only 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the capital.

An AFP reporter saw a long column of Russian vehicles, including about 25 tanks and 25 armoured personnel carriers, parked outside Gori. A Russian soldier told AFP the forces were peacekeepers and would be staying.

"We are here to protect the people and stop looting," said the soldier, who declined to be named.

According to Borisov, Russia also lifted a blockade of the town enforced since the fighting last week.

"All the roads are free for humanitarian aid and Georgians," Borisov said.

However, a leading UN official in the country said that large-scale aid deliveries were still be held up.

There were scenes of desperation in Gori as a trickle of supplies began arriving in the city, under Russian bombardment and then occupation after the outbreak of hostilities.

"Be quiet! Order! Everyone will get their turn," screamed an aid official in the centre of the city as a crowd bickered among themselves and jostled against his bus.

The bus arrived packed with boxes containing rice and dried beans from the Turkish Red Crescent and was immediately swamped by a crowd of 150 who held cards aloft as proof that they had registered for help.

There were no details about plans for Russian troops in other areas of Georgia, but an AFP reporter saw Russian armoured vehicles continuing to manoeuvre in the west of the country.

At a military base in Teklati, near the Georgian town of Senaki, four Russian tanks were seen driving off at about noon (0800 GMT) in the direction of the Black Sea port of Poti.

Fears of fresh violence in the west of the country were raised after Georgia reported late Saturday that Russian-backed separatists from another breakaway region, Abkhazia, had seized 13 villages in Georgian-controlled areas.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner described the ceasefire as "fragile" in a Sunday newspaper interview and called for an international peacekeeping force to be sent to Georgia "as quickly as possible."

Kouchner told the Journal du Dimanche that Russia's failure to withdraw its troops "was very worrying" and that a Russian troop pullout was "essential."

"The ceasefire is fragile, like all ceasefires.... But it is absolutely necessary for diplomatic and political pressure to continue," he said.

Medvedev signed a peace deal with Georgia on Saturday, a day after after Georgia's pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili.

The six-point deal obliges all forces in Georgia to withdraw to positions held prior to the Russian invasion.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said Sunday that Ossetian irregulars were attacking ethnic-Georgians in Russian-controlled areas and called for Russian authorities to take immediate steps to end the violence.

Dozens of Georgian captives were marched by armed guards through the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali on Saturday. Many had bruised faces and they walked with their heads bowed and their hands behind their backs. 

 

A convoy of Russian troops