US Vice President Joe Biden (L) speaks with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi. Photo Courtesy: AFP
Vice President Joe Biden held talks Thursday with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, pledging US support a year after the strategic ex-Soviet state was roundly defeated in a brief war with Russia.
"The reason why I am here... is to show you that we stand with you," Biden said at the start of his meeting with the Georgian leader at the presidential palace in Tbilisi.
He was scheduled to meet later with opposition leaders, who have accused Saakashvili of authoritarianism, before delivering a keynote address to the country's parliament.
Standing alongside Biden, Saakashvili insisted that Georgia had made an "irreversible" choice in favour of democracy and also remained committed to joining NATO.
"We are dedicated to joining Europe, the North Atlantic alliance," Saakashvili said.
Although no specific agenda for the meetings was made public, ahead of Biden's arrival Georgian officials had said they were engaged in talks for US personnel to join a European Union monitoring mission in the country.
European monitors patrol near two rebel regions that were the epicenter of last August's fighting between Russian and Georgian forces. They are part of an EU-brokered ceasefire deal that ended the fighting.
The United States has not confirmed whether sending US personnel to Georgia is on the agenda for the talks, but it has long backed Saakashvili's drive to reassert Georgian sovereignty over the two regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Both regions were formally recognized as independent countries by Russia in the wake of last year's war, but most of the world condemned the move, with only Nicaragua following suit.
Speaking with characteristic flair, Saakashvili said that a "historic injustice" had been done to Georgia, which he said was "comparable with Darfur", the scene of fierce ethnic battles in Sudan.
Biden said his discussions with Saakashvili and other Georgian officials would centre on three areas: "security, economy, democracy." But he did not elaborate.
Biden's boss, US President Barack Obama, has made repairing relations with Russia -- damaged by a variety of disagreements including Moscow's anger over close US ties with Georgia -- a top priority for his administration.
But Biden, who visited Ukraine before travelling to Georgia, said he had been sent by Obama to the two pivotal Russian neighbours to reassure them that Washington's "reset" of ties with Moscow would not come at their expense.
The Russian foreign ministry said Tuesday that Moscow would be watching Biden's travels "attentively," and another top official warned that the Kremlin would not allow Georgia to re-arm under Saakashvili.
"We will continue to prevent the re-arming of Saakashvili's regime and are taking concrete measures against this," the ITAR-TASS news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin as saying.
Biden arrived in Tbilisi on Wednesday, and in an ironic start to the visit, Biden's motorcade travelled along George W Bush Avenue, the main artery linking Tbilisi's airport with the city centre.
It was re-named several years ago in honour of the former US president.
Bush strongly backed Saakashvili and was hugely popular in Georgia at a time when he was widely disliked in many other countries.
Biden was greeted in Georgia by throngs of US flag-waving supporters along the road, some of them holding placards reading: "Yes You Can!" -- a reference to Obama's election campaign slogan
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