(Adds Kutelia quotes, details, background) TBILISI, April 14 (Reuters) - Georgia will withdraw its peacekeeping contingent from Kosovo later this week, Georgian First Deputy Defence Minister Batu Kutelia said on Monday. "We plan to withdraw our peacekeepers this week. This is 180 people," Kutelia told Reuters. He said the withdrawal was to free up troops for deployment in Afghanistan. He denied speculation that Georgia's decision to pull out the peacekeepers was taken in retaliation for a NATO decision earlier this month to rebuff U.S. demands to put Georgia and Ukraine on an immediate path to NATO membership. "Any talk that this (troop withdrawal) can be linked to the resolutions of the NATO summit in Bucharest is irrelevant," Kutelia said. At the summit, Germany, France and smaller NATO nations withstood pressure from U.S. President George W. Bush to offer the two ex-Soviet nations a Membership Action Plan (MAP), a first step towards entry. Old imperial master Russia has watched with unease NATO's expansion, and President Vladimir Putin has said further expansion of the alliance eastwards would be viewed by Moscow as a direct threat to its security. (Reporting by Margarita Antidze; Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Stephen Weeks)
A boy wearing a shirt with a picture of war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic stands in front of the Serbian flag during a pre-election rally of Serbian Radical Party leader Tomislav ...
