Berlin  - Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg has warned in an interview with a German magazine against appeasing Russia, but also said he would not support sanctions against Moscow.

The news weekly Der Spiegel released the text Saturday. It quoted Schwarzenberg saying Prague supported a rapid admission of Georgia to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), saying delay over this had only encouraged Russia to establish facts on the ground.

Moscow  - President Dmitry Medvedev was meeting his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao and the leaders of four ex-Soviet Central Asian nations on Wednesday in a bid to secure support for Russia its standoff with the West over Georgia.

Medvedev flew to the capital of Tajikistan for two days of consultations with his partners in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as Western leaders renewed their condemnation of Russia's diplomatic recognitition of breakaway regions of Georgia.

The SCO was formed in 2001 as a counterweight to NATO's growing influence in the region.

London - Russian President Dimitry Medvedev has issued a thinly veiled call for Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to resign in an article published in the London-based Financial Times Wednesday.

Calling Saakashvili a "madman" who had murdered hundreds of largely Russian civilians in an assault on the sleeping city of Tskhinvali, Medvedev said Russians felt "historic friendship and sympathy" for Georgians in general.

Sochi, Russia - Russian President Dimitry Medvedev Friday described Poland's decision to go ahead with the stationing of parts of a US anti-missile shield on its territory as "sad for Europe," but simultaneously spoke out against "dramatizing" the conflict.

Following talks on the situation in Georgia with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Medvedev said further talks were needed.

The decision taken Thursday by Poland, and earlier by the Czech Republic, to host elements of the US shield, "has the Russian Federation as its target," Medvedev said.

Berlin - The conflict between Georgia and Russia over South Ossetia is to top the agenda when German Chancellor Angela Merkel travels to the Black Sea resort of Sochi Friday for talks with Russian President Dimitry Medvedev, German media reported.

The row over the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia would be the "sole theme of the meeting," the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said, even though the meeting had been planned well before the simmering conflict erupted into open warfare.