Tbilisi - The Georgian President, Mr Eduard Shevardnadze, yesterday put off a trip to Brussels for talks with EU and NATO leaders to grapple with a political crisis at home.
Mr Shevardnadze dismissed his entire government on Thursday to try to defuse street protests triggered by a police raid on the independent Rustavi-2 television station, a regular critic of the president.
"The visit is postponed but not cancelled, as the president considered it was not appropriate to leave the country at such a critical moment," his spokesman, Mr Kakha Imnadze, said.