Germany Disappointed Over Russian Withdrawal

Angela Merkel has said she received assurances from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday that a pullout would go ahead.

Germany said on Wednesday it saw no clear evidence Russian troops were withdrawing from Georgia and, in a sign of growing Western frustration with Moscow, called the situation "very unsatisfactory".

"At the moment we have no tangible indication that the Russian troop withdrawal has really started. That is a very unsatisfactory situation," government spokesman Thomas Steg told a news conference.

"The Russian side has to follow up what it has promised with concrete action," he said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has travelled to Russia and Georgia in the past week to mediate in the conflict, has said she received assurances from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday that a pullout would go ahead.

While visiting Georgia at the weekend she urged Moscow to deliver on that promise and said she expected "very clear" signs of a withdrawal by Tuesday of this week, when NATO foreign ministers met in Brussels.

But Reuters reporters in and just outside Georgia said that by Wednesday there was no sign of a large-scale pullout, beyond the movement of some Russian military trucks over the border into Russia.

Steg also announced that the German government had doubled its humanitarian aid for the conflict-zone to 2 million euros ($2.95 million).