Tbilisi/Moscow  - Georgia said Monday that Russian forces, rather than showing signs of withdrawal, had dug in at checkpoints over the weekend in the Black Sea port of Poti, deep inside the former Soviet state.

"The Russian occupation force is reinforcing, rather than vacating, its checkpoints near the strategic commercial port of Poti," the Georgian government said in a statement.

It said that armoured personal carriers and about 60 troops were reinforcing two checkpoints in the strategic port, where a US battleship delivered aid last week.

The statement came even as French President Nicolas Sarkozy was in Moscow to exert a promise of withdrawal from the Russian side to return to a ceasefire agreement that ended the five-day war in mid- August.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to a timeline Monday for the withdrawal of Russian forces to be replaced by European Union observers after receiving a guarantee on the non-use of force from Georgia via EU negotiators.

But Medvedev insisted that over 500 Russian troops still in Georgia proper complied with the September 15 ceasefire accord by acting as "peacekeepers."

Sarkozy, whose country holds the EU presidency, accompanied by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, flew straight to Georgia from Russia for a second round of talks on Monday evening. (dpa)