Medvedev says Saakashvili "no longer" Georgia president

MOSCOW - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday he no longer considers his counterpart Mikheil Saakashvili to be Georgia's leader, charging in an interview that Saakashvili is a "political corpse."

"For us, the present Georgian regime has collapsed. President Saakashvili no longer exists in our eyes. He is a political corpse," Medvedev said.

Medvedev was responding to a question from a journalist from Italian station RAI on Russia's possible participation in a conference on the Caucasus in Rome in the coming weeks where Saakashvili would participate.

Medvedev said in the interview broadcast on Russian television that Moscow was ready to hold talks with the international community "on all sorts of questions, including post-conflict resolution in the region" of the Caucasus.

"But we would like the international community to remember who began the aggression and who is responsible for people's deaths," he said.

Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said last month that Italy intended to host an international conference on the Caucasus in Rome in October.

In an interview published on Monday, Frattini said he would go to Russia and Georgia this week in a bid to ease hostilities between the two neighbours.

Medvedev also said on Tuesday that Moscow did not fear being expelled from the Group of Eight industrialised nations over the Georgian crisis, as has been suggested by some in the West.

The Kremlin leader said the suggestions were being made in relation to the upcoming presidential election in the United States.

US Republican candidate John McCain has fiercely condemned Russia's actions in its conflict with Georgia, and demanded that Moscow be barred from the G8 rich nations club as punishment.

"The calls that are being heard, I explain them exclusively by the American electoral technology as a way of raising popularity based on conflict," Medvedev said in the interview.

He further said NATO "would lose more" than Moscow by breaking relations with Russia.

"We do not see anything dramatic, anything complicated in the suspension of relations (with NATO) if our partners desire it," said Medvedev. "But it seems that they would lose more."

Russia sent tanks and troops into Georgia on August 8, a day after Georgia launched an offensive to regain control of breakaway South Ossetia.

Moscow halted its offensive after five days but refused to withdraw all its troops, saying they are on a peacekeeping mission. Georgia has labelled them an occupation force.