Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called here Thursday for a halt to violence in two separatist provinces of Georgia and said the United States would work to help stabilise the area.
"The violence needs to stop," Rice said at a joint news conference with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, a key US ally in the turbulent Caucasus region.
Rice, who on Tuesday openly blamed Russia as a source of the continuing unrest in ex-Soviet Georgia, said it was "very important that all parties reject violence as an option" for resolving the status of the breakaway areas.
Referring specifically to a separatist province in western Georgia where a trio of bomb attacks last week left several people dead and more than a dozen wounded, Rice demanded an end to the violence there.
"There must be a peaceful solution to this situation in Abkhazia and that is what we will work for," she said.
Rice's visit to Georgia came amid increasingly open diplomatic confrontation between the United States and Russia over the status of Abkhazia and the other separatist province, South Ossetia, and over Georgia's desire to join NATO.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia broke away from Georgia after winning brief but bloody wars against Georgian government forces in the early 1990s in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Both provinces say their administrative attachment to Georgia was an accident of Soviet history, that they are not Georgian and that they have the same right to self-determination as other peoples.
Although they are not recognised by any country as independent states, they have been tacitly supported by Russia, which has granted Russian citizenship to many of the current residents of the two provinces.
The United States, which has sought to gain influence in the strategic Caucasus region on Russia's southern flank, strongly backs Saakashvili's drive to reassert control over Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
A senior US State Department official on Wednesday accused Russia of "greatly escalating" military and political pressure on Georgia with possibly dangerous consequences.
"It is our belief that a military cycle of escalation will simply develop a momentum of its own and could lead to a catastrophe in the region," the official said, warning of "fighting that would be horrific in human terms."
Hours earlier however, the Russian foreign ministry issued a statement accusing the United States of fanning tensions in the region by protecting Georgian "provocateurs" and giving Saakashvili freedom to act with "impunity."
On Tuesday, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations in New York, Vitaly Churkin, described the recent bombings in Abkhazia as "terrorist" acts and said Moscow had reason to believe the Georgian government was involved.
Russia has been irritated by Georgia's drive, encouraged by the United States, to join NATO, a military alliance that excludes Russia and that has enlarged in recent years to take in former Soviet states near Russia's borders.
Bids by Georgia and another ex-Soviet neighbour of Russia, Ukraine, to become formal candidates for NATO membership at the alliance's latest summit were put on hold, but Saakashvili said he hoped this status would come by year's end.
Standing alongside Rice, the Georgian leader however also appeared to hold out a hand to Russia, saying the 2014 Winter Olympics to be held in the southern Russian city of Sochi would be "a good chance for peace in the region."
"We will be more than pleased to set up a joint committee with the Russian Federation on preparation of a safe and successful environment for the Sochi Olympics," Saakashvili said.
