Russia to Georgia: don't use NATO to quell regions

Russia warned its ex-Soviet neighbour Georgia on Friday against trying to use NATO membership as a tool to regain control over its breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Georgia's pro-Western leaders want to end the country's traditional dependence on Russia and are pressing for a clear path to membership of NATO and the European Union.

"Concerning South Ossetia and Abkhazia, if Georgia intends to gain NATO support in order to solve these two conflicts by means of force, it's a dangerous game," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told journalists.

"The population of South Ossetia and Abkhazia cannot think of joining NATO," he said after meeting his colleagues from the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States. "In such a complicated issue, it's a dangerous game to play with fire."

Georgia and Ukraine, another ex-Soviet state, hope that a NATO summit in Bucharest next week will give them a Membership Action Plan (MAP) setting out steps to joining the alliance.

The United States supports both countries' membership bids, but France, Germany and some other European nations say the time is not right for such a move.