Georgian protests

Georgian opposition leaders accuse President Mikhail Saakashvili of mishandling last year's war with Russia over South Ossetia, and of becoming increasingly autocratic since coming to power in the peaceful 2003 Rose Revolution.

Saturday's protests marked a month since they first began on April 9 and came a day after the first formal contact between Saakashvili's government and opposition leaders failed to make any progress in resolving the political stand-off.

Opposition representatives at the talks said the government had failed to meet their key demand of setting a time and place for a meeting with Saakashvili.

Despite that, the European Union hailed the start of talks as an important step forward.

The EU's envoy to the South Caucasus, Peter Semneby said it was important they be followed up.

While Semneby said the EU has a "profound interest" in events in Georgia, he ruled out any direct mediation by the EU.

"The role we foresee for ourselves in this process is going to have to be determined by the Georgians themselves. This is about how Georgia should be governed," he said.

Opposition leaders differ on approach

Several opposition leaders demanded direct talks with President Saakashvili so they could tell him personally to quit.

"We are giving the president 24 hours to get in touch with us by telephone or any other means, otherwise we'll let you know our plans on the continuation of our activities and their scope tomorrow evening," Salome Zurabishvili, one of the protest leaders, told around 20,000 protesters in front of parliament.

Others, like Irakly Alasania, urged patience.

Alasania, Georgia's former ambassador to the United Nations, who quit that post after the war with Russia, said talks with parliament speaker David Bakradze should continue.

"It should happen in the nearest time, I do not think we should create artificial barriers by giving ultimatums," he said.

"We believe that the best outcome can be the achievement of free and fair elections for president and parliament, but we also understand there are issues the government wants to discuss with us and we are prepared to hear these issues."

The government says it is offering talks on reforms to address opposition accusations that Saakashvili has monopolised power, undermined the judiciary and repressed free media.

It claims these issues, and not the president's resignation, should be the agenda for a meeting.

Protests end a tumultuous week

The stand-off over Saakashvili's rule flared into violence this week, when clashes between police and protesters left 28 people injured. It was the first major outbreak since the protests began.

Officials said the clashes broke out after opposition supporters tried to storm a main police station and police used truncheons to repel protesters trying to climb a fence around the building.

The opposition claims police attacked protesters and fired rubber bullets. That has been denied by officials and police have said nobody was seriously injured.

Also this week, the Georgian government claims to have been hit by a bloodless military mutiny, just hours before the controversial NATO military exercises in Georgia began. Georgia accused Moscow of engineering the mutiny, which is angry over the NATO exercises being held in Georgia.