"There was no beating. Certainly we detained them, which naturally was in the interests of the security of the region, where President Mikheil Saakashvili was travelling," Okruashvili said.

"All the rest is pure invention," said Okruashvili.

Georgia's foreign ministry said it had formally asked Russia to hand over another Russian officer, who was believed to be hiding in the Russian military headquarters building in Tbilisi.

Georgian police formed a blockade around the building using dozens of vehicles.

Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili told reporters Wednesday that Russian officers of the military intelligence service had been arrested as they "were spying in Tbilisi, Batumi and all over Georgian territory".

Relations between Russia and this ex-Soviet state in the strategic Caucasus region have been tense on and off for two centuries.

They have worsened significantly in the three years since US-educated Mikheil Saakashvili came to power in Tbilisi and vowed to lead Georgia away from Russian influence and toward the West.

The current row comes after NATO said last week that it had agreed to start "intensified dialogue" with Georgia over the country's possible entry to the alliance.

Russia on Thursday said it had recalled its ambassador to Tbilisi for consultations and was evacuating some personnel for safety reasons.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, quoted by domestic news agencies, demanded the immediate release of the Russian officers and said the case should be taken to the UN Security Council, complaining that "the party of war" was getting the upper hand in Tbilisi.

Speaking from Sakhalin in Russia's far east, Lavrov also lashed out at Georgia's increasingly warm relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), saying it had served only "to intensify the anti-Russian policy" of the government in Tbilisi, the reports said.

"There are grounds for the Security Council to address this problem," the RIA Novosti and Interfax agencies quoted Lavrov as saying.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov meanwhile unleashed a blast of vitriol himself, describing the actions of the authorities as "completely wild and hysterical."

Ivanov warned that Russia could be expected to deliver an "appropriate" response to Georgia and compared the arrests of the Russian officers to 1930s repression by the regime of Josef Stalin, according to Interfax news agency.

Ivanov said that six Russian servicemen had been detained and beaten by Georgian police near the western Georgian port of Batumi before being released.

The Russian embassy in Tbilisi on Thursday indefinitely suspended the issue of visas to Georgian citizens for travel to Russia, an embassy spokesman told AFP.

Russia's foreign ministry meanwhile said that the deputy foreign minister had met with the US ambassador to Moscow to inform him of the "baselessness" of the Georgian accusations, adding that Russia "counts on the understanding and support of its American partners".

Russian ambassador Mikhail Svirin told AFP Friday that in the Russian view the "security threat is credible".

At the United Nations in New York, Russian envoy Vitaly Churkin called for Security Council action to restrain Georgia, which he accused of "serious provocations".

Churkin said he had circulated a draft statement Friday for possible adoption by the Security Council expressing "deep concern" over Georgia's actions and demanding a withdrawal of Georgian troops from a gorge overlooking the separatist region of Abkhazia.

The latest row between Russia and its Caucasus neighbour blew up after Georgia arrested four Russian officers and a driver Wednesday, saying they had been spying on Georgian military installations.

Another arrested man said earlier to be a Russian officer was in fact a Georgian citizen and is under investigation, interior ministry official Shota Khizanishvili told AFP Friday.

The officers' driver has been released, Khizanishvili said.

The four Russian officers were to appear at an initial court hearing later Friday after formal charges were lodged against them earlier for spying, Khizanishvili said.

Georgian police maintained a cordon of dozens of vehicles Friday around a Russian military headquarters building in Tbilisi, demanding the hand-over of another Russian officer wanted by Georgia on suspicion of spying and said to be hiding there.

Relations between Russia and this ex-Soviet state in the strategic Caucasus region have been tense at various times for two centuries.

They have worsened significantly since 2003, when the US-educated Mikheil Saakashvili came to power in Tbilisi and vowed to lead Georgia away from Russian influence and towards the West.

Saakashvili on Thursday denied that there was any need for Russia's evacuation of personnel.

"I don't understand why this hysteria is being created. There are no kind of threats to the security of Russian families in Georgia as our country acts strictly in accordance with international agreements," Saakashvili told journalists.

The arrests were aimed "at the maintenance of Georgian law," he said.

"Nothing illegal has happened. We are building democracy and protecting our statehood. That's how all democratic countries act," Saakashvili said.

The current row comes against a background of Russian anger at Georgia's growing links to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and in particular an announcement on those links by the alliance last week.

NATO said it was starting "intensified dialogue" with Georgia over the country's possible entry into the alliance.

Adding to the tensions, Saakashvili visited the Kodori gorge, which overlooks the Russian-backed breakaway region of Abkhazia, on Wednesday.

His visit came after Georgian forces this summer dislodged a local militia leader who dominated the gorge.

Saakashvili said the restoration of central power there would in time lead to the return of Abkhazia proper to Georgian control, announcing that the gorge would henceforth be known as Upper Abkhazia.

On Thursday Russia recalled its ambassador for consultations.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, quoted by domestic news agencies, demanded the immediate release of the Russian officers and said the case should be taken to the UN Security Council, complaining that "the party of war" was getting the upper hand in Tbilisi.

The Russian embassy has indefinitely suspended the issue of visas to Georgian citizens for travel to Russia.

Elite soldiers of the Presidential Staff and officers from the Federal Preventative Police, who were guarding the headquarters, frustrated the plans of the Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) members.

Gerardo Fernandez Norona, a spokesman for Obrador's PRD, and Marti Batres Guadarrama, PRD chief in Mexico City, were trying to hang a sign saying "Illegitimate President and Usurper" on the front of the building.

Obrador and his supporters are waging a campaign, which they describe as "resisting the imposition of a right-wing candidate," alleging that the election that brought Calderon to power was a fraudulent one.

After a scuffle with security officers, some 40 PRD supporters engaged in a shouting match, chanting "Felipe the Usurper" across the barriers, while Calderon supporters shouted back "Felipe won" and "keep dancing for six more years."

Calderon, President Elect and former candidate of the ruling National Action Party (PAN) won the July 2 election with a slim margin of 0.56 percentage point, and will take office on Dec. 1.

Lopez Obrador has refused to concede defeat, alleging massive fraud in the electoral process, and said he will not recognize the incoming administration.

Mr Blair has confided to friends that he drew inspiration for his big sign-off from a favourite passage of John Steinbeck's 1939 classic The Grapes of Wrath.

The Premier ended his last conference speech by telling delegates: 'Whatever you do, I'm always with you. Head and heart. Next year I won't be making this speech. But in the years to come, wherever I am, whatever I do, I'm with you. Wishing you well, wanting you to win.'

He later admitted he had borrowed heavily from a speech by Tom Joad, the central character of Steinbeck's Pulitzer prize-winning novel about the Great Depression.

Joad, played by Henry Fonda in the film version, tells his mother he is going to come out of hiding to confront a gang of vigilantes, one of whose number he had earlier killed.

Knowing he is likely to be murdered himself, Joad tells his tearful mother that he will always be with her in spirit.

'I'll be everywhere - wherever you look,' he says. 'Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there... an' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build - why, I'll be there. See?'

Steinbeck's seminal work caused controversy when it was first published because of his sympathetic portrayal of the killer Tom Joad, who is released on parole at the start of the book after being jailed for murdering a man with a shovel in a drunken fight.

Having broken his parole conditions by moving from the Oklahoma dust bowl to California in search of work, Joad then kills a vigilante who has murdered a friend striking over low wages.

The book is now regarded as the definitive portrayal of poverty and social injustice in 1930s America.