Russian buffer zone in Georgia includes key road

By Margarita Antidze

TBILISI (Reuters) - The buffer zone inside Georgia where Russia plans to maintain a military presence cuts across the country's main east-west highway, a key economic lifeline, according to an official map seen by Reuters on Thursday.

Russia has said it will pull back the bulk of the tanks and troops it sent into Georgia earlier this month, but after that it intends to keep 500 soldiers in a "zone of responsibility" deep inside Georgia's heartland.

Russian officials say the zone was established in principle in an agreement between Russia and Georgia which pre-dates this month's conflict, but was never put into force.

"The southern border of the so-called zone of responsibility crosses the highway in two places, near the villages of Agara and Shaveshebi," Georgian State Minister for Reintegration Temur Iakobashvili told Reuters after showing it a map of the zone adopted as part of that agreement.

"The Russians want to set up their so-called zone of responsibility near to Gori, but this is a violation of any agreement."

Russian forces moved into Georgia to counter a Georgian attack on South Ossetia, a separatist region which is backed by Moscow. They quickly defeated the Georgian military and moved beyond South Ossetia into the Georgian heartland.

The fighting ended when French President Nicolas Sarkozy brokered a ceasefire deal, and the Kremlin promised to pull back its forces by August 22. The United States demanded on Thursday Russian troops pull out immediately and said Moscow was in violation of its commitment to withdraw.

BUFFER ZONES