Tbilisi, Georgia - The Russian army on Thursday announced plans to hand over control of the central Georgian city of Gori to the Georgian police in a step away from escalation of the South Ossetia conflict.

Russian troops were moving north Thursday morning and the handover would take place Friday, Russian General Viacheslav Borisov said, according to a report from Russia's Interfax news agency.

The troops had orders to collect weapons, ammunition as well as military equipment left behind by the Georgian army, he said.

London, Aug. 14 : Russia continues to challenge the United States, and especially President George W Bush to "choose" between Washington''s relationship with Georgia and its future ties with Moscow.

The challenge was mounted as Russian troops in about 70 military vehicles left Gori and headed towards Georgian capital Tbilisi, located 50 miles away.

In appeared to be a calculated defiance of the US and the European Union, which mediated a ceasefire deal 24 hours earlier, reports The Telegraph.

It maybe recalled that Bush had warned that the Russian advance could damage ties between the two countries, and demanded that Moscow "keep its word" over the ceasefire.

Tbilisi, Georgia - The Russian army on Thursday announced plans to hand over control of the central Georgian city of Gori to the Georgian police in a step away from escalation of the South Ossetia conflict.

Russian troops were moving north Thursday morning and the handover would take place Friday, Russian General Viacheslav Borisov said, according to a report from Russia's Interfax news agency.

Borisov made the announcement after late-night meetings in Gori with Georgia's national security minister, Aleksander Lomaia.

Tbilisi (Georgia), Aug 13 : Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili today said that Russian troops were completely disregarding the cease-fire agreement reached on Tuesday, continuing a campaign of violence against Georgian citizens that amounted to ethnic cleansing.

Saakashvili, speaking in Tbilisi alongside a handful of other Presidents from former Soviet states, said he had reports that Russian troops were still taking control of Georgian territory beyond the borders of two separatist regions and were forcing residents into “internment camps”.

Washington, Aug. 13 : The conflict between Russia and Georgia has refocused attention on the increasingly hard line that Senator John McCain has taken against Russia in recent years, reports the New York Times.

According to the paper, McCain has called for expelling what he has called a “revanchist Russia” from meetings of the Group of Eight, the organization of leading industrialized nations.

He had also urged President Bush to boycott the group’s meeting in St. Petersburg in 2006, but in vain.

Amsterdam - Georgia has instituted proceedings against Russia before the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, the ICJ said in a statement Wednesday.

Georgia is suing the Russian Federation over what it calls "its actions on and around the territory of Georgia" in breach of the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

In its application, Georgia "also seeks to ensure that the individual rights" under the convention "of all persons on the territory of Georgia are fully respected and protected."