Moscow, Tbilisi - Russia pledged to pull back the bulk of its troops from Georgia by the end of Friday, but planned to hold a buffer zone and "peacekeeping forces" in two breakaway regions, angering Western diplomats.

Colonel General Anatoly Nogovitsin, deputy head of the Russian military's general staff, said Friday that the Russian forces are "in final stage of pull back."

The general said 18 additional Russian checkpoints were being built up Friday as part of a Russian-controlled buffer zone along the border of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetian and Abkhazia.

A contingent of 2,142 Russian peacekeeping forces would remain in Abkhazia and 452 troops in South Ossetia, Nogovitsyn said at a briefing in Moscow.

Damascus - Hamas' Damascus-based political chief Kh

Istanbul  - Turkey gave permission on Thursday for US Navy ships to pass through Turkish-controlled waters to bring medical supplies to Georgia.

The permission for the US vessels to pass through the Bosporus Straits connecting the Mediterranean with the Black Sea followed several days of negotiations amid Turkish reluctance in the stand-off between Russia and the US over South Ossetia.

Controversy had previously arisen over whether the US had made a formal request for passage, under the terms of a decades-old maritime treaty.

The two US Navy ships - the "Comfort" and the "Mercy" - are carrying medical aid and are to be accompanied by one coastguard vessel.

Tbilisi/Moscow - The Kremlin on Thursday announced it had begun its first substantial troop withdrawals from Georgia, but army-operated road and rail checkpoints remained in place throughout the Russian area of occupation.

Combat elements of Russia's 58th Army were evacuating the vicinity of the north Georgian town Gori and would return to South Ossetia over the next two days, a Russian army spokesman told the Interfax news agency.

The first 100-vehicle column had reached the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali by 9 a. m. Thursday morning, the official said.

Georgian media showed images of Russian tanks and personnel carriers moving north from Gori, but Russian road checkpoints remained in place, eyewitnesses said.

Grakali, Georgia  - "We can get traffic moving across this in two weeks - if the Russians don't blow it up again," said Georgian railroad engineer Georgy Gurgiashvidze.

"But if they do blow it up a second time, maybe at least they'll admit they did it," he told a Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa reporter on Wednesday, as he gestured at the twisted remains of one of Georgia's most critical rail links lying in a gully next to the sluggish Kvari River.

The Kvari River railroad bridge near the central Georgian village Grakali connects the capital Tbilisi with points westward, that is, it did until the Russian army demolition experts arrived.

Georgia, Russia - Georgia's rebel region of Abkhazia will lodge a formal appeal with Moscow on Wednesday to be recognized as an independent state, the parliamentary speaker for the autonomous region told news agency Interfax.

Abkhazia will hold a special parliamentary session on Wednesday to consider an independence appeal to Russia for recognition by the breakaway region's president Sergei Bagapsh, Abkhaz parliament speaker Nugzar Ashuba said.

"We will request to recognize the independence of our republic," Ashuba was quoted by the agency as saying.