Tbilisi/Moscow  - Georgia declared Friday that it was breaking off all diplomatic ties with Russia over the Kremlin's recognition of its breakaway regions.

It also and outlawed Russia's local peacekeeping mission. Russia criticized the deterioration in relations.

The move was part of a parliamentary resolution voted Thursday, which included an official termination of Russia's former peacekeeping mission in Georgia.

The move is largely symbolic as over 500 Russian troops are entrenched in buffer zones extending along the borders of Georgia's two breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Russia's foreign ministry voiced regret over Georgia's decision to cut ties on Friday.

"The possible end of diplomatic relations with Georgia is not the choice of Moscow, and Tbilisi will have to bear the entire responsibility," ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko was quoted by news agency Interfax as saying.

"We should uphold relations in the sphere that imports to average citizens," the diplomat said, adding it would take a great effort to revive relations.

Georgia said its staff would pull out from Moscow on Saturday but it would keep its consulates, deputy foreign minister Grigol Vashadze said.

The Caucasus state is searching for a third country to represent its interests in Moscow, Vashadze was quoted by local media as saying.

Russia recognized the independence of Georgia's separatist regions a week after its tanks rolled into South Ossetia to push back Georgia's offensive to re-assert control over the territory.

Both regions have had Moscow strong support since winning a war of succession from Tbilisi for autonomy within the ethnic borders drawn by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in the early 1990s.

But while Abkhazia seeks self-determination, South Ossetia's ultimate ambition to unite with Russia's ethnically-similar region of North Ossetia.

An official from the rebel region said it would be absorb back by Russia in "several years."

Parliamentary speaker Znaur Gassiyev said such an agreement had been reached in talks this week between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the regions' president Eduard Kokoity.

This goal was "firmly stated by both leaders," Gassiyev was quoted by local media as saying in the separatist capital of Tskhinvali. The Kremlin did not comment on the matter. (dpa)