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IGOETI, Georgia: Russian and Georgian forces exchanged prisoners on Tuesday on a road between Georgia's capital Tbilisi and the city of Gori, in an apparent goodwill gesture despite continued tensions.
An AFP reporter saw 13 Georgians exchanged for five Russians at a checkpoint 30 kilometres (19 miles) from Tbilisi. The Georgians, two of them wounded, had earlier emerged from Russian helicopters that landed near the site.
Four ambulances were waiting on the Georgian side of the checkpoint to receive their prisoners after the exchange. One Georgian prisoner, unshaven and wounded in the leg, was laid in one of the ambulances.
The prisoner said he had been transferred from the southern Russian city of Vladikavkaz to the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali ahead of the exchange.
Before the exchange, two wounded Russian soldiers were seen on the Georgian side laid out on stretchers.
It was not immediately clear if the prisoners exchanged represented all the soldiers captured in the conflict that started when Georgia launched an assault on the Moscow-backed breakaway region of South Ossetia on August 7.
Georgian Deputy Interior Minister Eka Zghuladze said the day earlier that over 100 Georgian citizens had been detained by Russia in the conflict while Georgia had captured between 12 and 15 people.
The Igoeti checkpoint has in recent days marked the current limit of Georgian control in the area, with one side blocked by Georgian police and the other controlled by a handful of Russian soldiers.
Despite Tbilisi's fury that Russian troops remain deep inside the country and are surrounding the city of Gori, 60 kilometres (37 miles) outside the capital, there have been signs of conciliatory moves in the last days.
President Mikheil Saakashvili on Monday called for talks between Tbilisi and Moscow to prevent a "definitive estrangement" between the two countries.
- AFP/so
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