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.

Tehran - A senior Iranian general warned the United States of the consequences of its interference in the Caucasus crisis, Iran's official news agency IRNA reported Saturday.

Deputy chief of staff General Masoud Jazayeri said that after Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States had caused another global crisis in the Caucasus.

"The greed of the US leadership is gradually leading the world towards the brink of ruin," the general said. In such a situation, any military attack on Iran would be "the start of a world war."

Brussels - Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze plans to meet European Union officials and country leaders during a visit to Brussels next week, the Georgian embassy in Brussels said Friday.

The visit coincides with Monday's emergency meeting of EU heads of state and government, who will be discussing the consequences of the conflict between Georgia and Russia.

Gurgenidze plans to hold "a series of bilateral meetings with EU leaders", an official from the Georgian embassy told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa.

Moscow  - Russia on Friday rejected the criticism of fellow G8 members as biased and orchestrated to justify Georgian "aggression," but said it aimed to keep its spot among the world's top industrialized nations.

The G7 foreign ministers roundly condemned this week for recognizing of Georgia's separatist regions as a violation of the former Soviet state's sovereignty.

Berlin - The German government has not discerned any signs that Russia might cut oil deliveries to Europe as part of its response to the crisis over Georgia, a spokesman said Friday.

"We firmly assume that contracts will be adhered to," government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said.

He was responding to a report in the London-based Daily Telegraph that the Kremlin would order a cut-off in supplies to Poland and Germany through the Druzhba pipeline.

"There are no signs thus far that contracts and approved deliveries will not be adhered to," Wilhelm said.

Berlin - Russia's actions in Georgia earlier this month had destroyed the order in Europe established after World War II, President Mikheil Saakashvili told German public radio Friday.

The Georgian president warned that Russia would be emboldened by its military success. "They are not going to stop here," he said in an interview with Deutschlandfunk.

"What Russia has done undermines and destroys the whole post-Cold War, post-Second World War European order," he said.

It was the first time since then that a European power had sought to annex territory in a neighbouring country.