Moscow: Russia has withdrawn its troops that were based in Georgia since the Soviet collapse, a top Russian general said today, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. The Russian troop presence had long been a source of irritation between Georgia and its giant neighbour. Russian peacekeepers remain, however, in two separatist regions of the former Soviet republic, said Gen Alexei Maslov, commander of Russian ground troops, according to the news agency.

"There are no more Russian troops in Georgia, there remain only peacekeepers ... In Abkhazia, and those that are part of the combined forces in South Ossetia with the participation of Georgia," Maslov was quoted as saying.

Calls to the Georgian Defence Ministry for comment went unanswered.

The breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia have been outside Georgian control since the end of wars in the mid-1990s. Georgian leaders complain that Russian troops in both regions support the separatists, and their continued presence is likely to continue being an issue of hot dispute between Tbilisi and Moscow.

But the final removal of troops that were based in Georgia as a hangover from the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union would remove another of the more contentious points in Russian-Georgian relations.

The RIA-Novosti news agency cited an aide to Maslov, Col Igor Konashenkov, as saying that the final convoy of troops and equipment, which had been based in Batumi in far southwestern Georgia, crossed into Armenia just after midnight Moscow time. Those troops are to be based in the northern Armenian town of Gyumri, Konashenkov was quoted as saying.

Source : PTI