Shots fired at President Kaczyński's motorcade in Georgia

The Interior Ministry of Georgia has confirmed that a motorcade carrying both President of Poland Lech Kaczyński and President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili was fired upon Sunday in Georgia, as it passed a checkpoint near the flashpoint South Ossetia region.

The motorcade was not hit and no injuries were reported, the ministry said.

The ministry said that the shots came from Russian-controlled territory.

The Georgian and Polish sides are accusing Russia of provocation, while Russia has responded that the provocation was from the Georgian/Polish side.

"Frankly I didn't expect the Russians to open fire. I thought they clearly saw that this was an official cortege, this was a high delegation," Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili told BBC World Service radio.

"Clearly it was intended as a provocation, certainly I would never intend to put the life of the president of Poland in danger, that was none of my intention but the reality is that you know you are dealing with unpredictable people," he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, accompanying President Dmitry Medvedev on a trip to Latin America, brushed aside Georgian accusations.

"This is a clear provocation," he told reporters in Lima, Peru. "It is not the first time they are doing so. They are organizing the provocation and then blame the Russian side."

"Inviting the [Polish] president to Tbilisi and then taking him for a car ride to a different country - isn't that a provocation?" he added.

The Polish media has reported that the presidents were on their way to visit a refugee camp near the de facto Georgia-South Ossetia border.

Lavrov denied any Russian responsibility.

"There was no shooting from either the Russian or the Ossetian side," he said.

A witness travelling with Saakashvili told Reuters that uniformed men who appeared to be South Ossetians fired shots into the air when officials began getting out of their cars.

Though automatic gunfire could be heard, shaky television footage was inconclusive.

"We heard machine-gun volleys about 30 metres from where I was," PAP quoted President Kaczyński as saying.

Later, he told a news conference, "I appeal from this spot to my friends in the European Union to draw the proper conclusions from this event before it is too late ... I do not regret that trip along that dark road."

Russia invaded Georgia in August to repel a Georgian bid to retake breakaway South Ossetia from pro-Moscow separatists. Russian forces have pulled back from buffer zones into South Ossetian territory - though not back to pre-war positions as mandated by an EU-brokered ceasefire.

A 225-strong EU mission is monitoring a fragile ceasefire. (Reuters)

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