WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 (Xinhuanet) -- Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili's US visit, which began on Wednesday, is aimed at seeking US help to defuse the mounting tension between Georgia andRussia over the situations of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, observers said Friday.

    The United States, which has been mindful not to anger Russia or dampen the warm American relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, has however merely offered "good offices" -- diplomacy that stops short of mediation but involves advising bothsides on how they can reduce tensions, and called on both sides toengage in dialogue to calm down the situation.

    Saakashvili, a 36-year-old reformer who took power last year after the ouster of Georgia's long-serving president Eduard Shevardnadze, believes that US help can make a difference.

    Though on an unofficial US visit, Saakashvili met with US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shortly after his arrival on Wednesday and with Secretary of State Colin Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on Thursday.

    "The last thing we want is some kind of confrontation. That is exactly something that they would like to impose upon us because they think that now we are so vulnerable. Certainly, we are going to overcome that kind of thing and I think the help of the US administration has been very helpful," Saakashvili said on Thursday after his meeting with Powell.

    Saakashvili, a former lawyer educated in the United States, hastaken pro-American policies since he came to power in January thisyear.

    Meanwhile, Powell said what the United States was anxious to dois to "calm this situation down, remove tensions and the propensity for provocation and get back to dialogue."

    "We will use our good offices, as we have rather repeatedly, continuously, since last November," Powell said.

    Powell also played down the intensity of the dispute between Georgia and Russia. "There is a bit of tension there, but I do not think they are on the verge of a crisis of the kind that is sometimes suggested. We have seen this kind of problem before and I think we know how to deal with it diplomatically," he said.

    Relations between Georgia and Russia have been tense as Russia on Wednesday protested against alleged Georgian troops' firing at a Russian delegation in Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia and urged the Georgian authorities to probe into the incident.

    "We are calling on the Georgian authorities to immediately launch an investigation and find and punish the executors of the anti-Russian act of provocation," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

    Earlier on Wednesday, a convoy carrying a Russian delegation came under fire, allegedly from Georgian troops in a conflict zonebetween South Ossetia and Georgia.

    The spiraling tensions between Georgia and Russia came at an awkward moment for the Bush administration, which has described its warm relations with Moscow as one of its major foreign policy achievements, The New York Times said in a report on Friday.

    The Bush administration had not only managed to win Russian acceptance of the American invasion of Iraq but also acceptance ofthe expanding presence of American military forces in what used tobe the old Soviet bloc of nations, the report said.

    Nonetheless, Georgia has been important to the United States asit is the site of a pipeline that will transport Caspian oil to Western markets and the United States has been extending its influence in the region by offering military assistance to the former Soviet republic.

    Therefore, observers believe that the United States, having been rivaling with Russia for control over the Caspian Sea's enormous oil wealth, is expected to exert pressure on the sides, especially the Russian side in one way or another, to try to resolve the tension diplomatically. Enditem