Talks in Tbilisi on 18 February between visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and senior Georgian officials failed to defuse any of the major sticking points in bilateral relations, Georgian and Russian media reported. The visit was blighted from the beginning by Lavrov\'s refusal to lay a wreath at a monument in Tbilisi to Georgian troops killed during the offensives launched again the unrecognized republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the early 1990s. Lavrov told journalists that, contrary to normal diplomatic procedure, that event was not included in the preliminary schedule of engagements until the day before his visit. Tbilisi responded by downgrading the visit from an official to a working one and sending only Deputy Foreign Minister Merab Antadze to greet Lavrov at Tbilisi airport, where no guard of honor was provided. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili branded Lavrov\'s refusal \"unexpected, strange, and unacceptable.\" (Caucasus Press)