Riga - The foreign and domestic policies of the Russian government continued to receive a mauling in the Latvian capital, Riga, Saturday with a trio of presidents joining other political figures in criticism of the Kremlin at a NATO-sponsored conference.

President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia claimed former Russian President Vladimir Putin had told him "he would make us Northern Cyprus" long before territorial disputes in South Ossetia turned into armed conflict in August.

Moscow - The presidents of France and Russia telephoned Saturday in preparation for the resumption of talks about closer ties between Russia and the European Union, the Interfax news agency reported Saturday.

The EU suspended those talks on a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement after Russia's war with Georgia this summer.

But officials from France, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, have given signs that the talks are set to resume and that a timetable for further talks could be laid out at a November 14 meeting in Nice.

Moscow - Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi, speaking Saturday on the first full day of his visit to Russia, said the visit was giving a fresh impulse to relations between Moscow and Tripoli.

Cooperation in the energy sector was of particular importance at the moment, he was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying during a meeting with president Dmitri Medvedev.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was meanwhile quoted as saying talks on arms sales to Libya would take more time.

Berlin - Efforts by Russia and other other countries to form an OPEC-style cartel for natural gas have run into difficulties, the German newspaper Die Welt said Saturday.

A spokesman for Russia's state-controlled energy company Gazprom told the daily a meeting of natural gas exporting countries planned for Moscow this month, had been postponed until 2009.

All members of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum had agreed to the delay, Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kuprianov was quoted as saying.

Moscow - The splurge of oil profits feeding Russia's years of growth has turned sticky with falling production and energy prices.

This double whammy is threatening to undercut the government's economic policy as the industry that is its main source of revenue takes a battering from the country's worst financial crisis in a decade.

Scooping huge oil windfalls into state coffers over the oil industry's boom years from 1999 to 2004 has been at the root of Russia's ideology under former President Vladimir Putin.

The surplus helped pay back a national debt as part of a therapy to recover from the humiliation an impoverished Russia suffered by the Soviet collapse and then move toward a resurgent foreign policy.

Moscow - Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi arrived in Moscow on Friday for a three-day visit the Kremlin hopes will lead to weapons purchases by the North African country.

Gaddafi is due to meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during his stay. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he had "no doubt" the visit would be a success.

Moscow has made a push to renew Soviet-era relations with Libya since former president Vladimir Putin traveled to Tripoli in April.