Kidnappers have released four UN staff abducted last week while monitoring the border between Georgia and the breakaway province of Abkhazia.
Unidentified gunmen abducted the three military observers - two Germans and a Dane - and their Georgian translator last Thursday in the remote Kodori Gorge on the border with Abkhazia, which proclaimed itself a separate state in 1993.
"We can confirm that the hostages have been released," a spokesman for Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze said. "The ransom has not been paid," he said, adding that the kidnappers would not face criminal charges.
But he gave no details of the agreement struck after two days of talks between government officials and the kidnappers, who demanded a $3 million ransom on Sunday.
The kidnap business has flourished in Georgia since it gained independence from the Soviet Union, and several UN observers have been abducted in the Kodori Gorge in the past.
They too were released after a few days with government officials insisting no ransom had been paid. But diplomats and aid workers suspect the government, keen to clean up Georgia's reputation for lawlessness and attract Western investment, has paid off kidnappers.
The hostages are due to return to the Georgian capital Tbilisi tomorrow. No details of their health have been released. They were part of a 100-strong UN team monitoring a truce since 1993, when Abkhazian separatists drove out Georgian troops in a conflict that killed about 10,000 people.
Abkhazia is not recognised as an independent state by any country or international body but UN efforts to arrange talks with the Georgian government have so far failed.