Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said Wednesday that Azerbaijan had agreed to supply his country with natural gas as it seeks alternatives to rising Russian prices, but Azerbaijan’s state petroleum company said no contract has been signed, AP reports.

Saakashvili said the deal was reached after he met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev during a summit of ex-Soviet nations Tuesday. This winter will see a historic example of Georgian-Azerbaijani brotherhood,” he said.

But Saakashvili gave no details, and the press service of the Azerbaijani oil and gas company said no deal had been signed. The Georgian Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, said a Georgian delegation led by the prime minister would visit Thursday for talks on economic issues including energy supplies.

Russia’s state-controlled gas monopoly OAO Gazprom has said it plans to charge Georgia $230 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas, compared with the $110 it pays now, and warned that it would cut off supplies by Jan. 1 if no contract was signed — a demand Georgia rejected as “political blackmail.”

Moscow and Tbilisi have been locked in a bruising dispute in recent months with Russia slapping trade and travel sanctions on Georgia after Tbilisi detained four purported Russian spies. Georgian leaders say the sanctions are retaliation for the country’s pro-Western course.

Georgia had indicated that it would seek to increase gas imports from Iran, but the United States has publicly cautioned against it, thus leaving Tbilisi with Azerbaijan as its optimal supplier.

Saakashvili said he also met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday on the sidelines of the summit in Belarus, though the Kremlin said Tuesday that the two had spoken only during a broader meeting in the presence of several over presidents.

Saakashvili said he would continue contacts with Putin to give a “new dimension” to bilateral ties.

“We must have a constant dialogue with Russia,” he said in televised remarks.

Saakashvili sounded a defiant note as well, however, saying that Georgians did not need to care about what “Russia thinks about us, what it says and does.”

“From now on, it’s the Georgian people who will determine all scenarios for Georgia,” he said.

Elected in 2004, Saakashvili has sought to bring the poor Caucasus nation closer to the West and join NATO in 2008, while also drawing Georgia’s rebel provinces back into the fold — a course that has angered Russia.

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