Moscow/Tbilisi - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday in Moscow presented a six-point plan for a cessation of hostilities in the south Caucasus.

Speaking at a joint press conference, the two politicians called for a lasting end to the use of force by all the parties to the conflict.

Sarkozy arrived in Moscow on an mission to achieve an end to the fighting. France currently holds the European Union presidency and had on Monday put forward a three-phase plan for stabilizing the conflict.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili accepted the French plan immediately.

According to Medvedev, Russia was committing to withdraw all its troops to the positions they were holding before the outbreak of the conflict in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia. He said that Georgia had to do the same.

Sarkozy was set to travel on to the Georgian capital Tbilisi to meet with Saakashvili. "There is still a lot to do but the night is long," the French president said.

"We couldn't solve all problems at once. We find ourselves in an emergency situation," Sarkozy said.

A "provisional ceasefire" is currently in effect in the region, Medvedev said. He declared an end to Russian military operations in Georgia, as Moscow officials called for Saakashvili to stand down.

The safety of Russian "peacekeeping" forces and Russian citizens had been guaranteed, and the Georgian "aggressor" had been punished, the Russian president said after a meeting with his military leadership.

Russian troops will remain stationed in the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Medvedev said.

"They are the deciding factor for security in the Caucasus," the Russian leader said.

Russia's Defence Ministry had been given orders to resume military operations at any time if Georgia were to restart "violence against the population" of South Ossetia, Medvedev added.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaking at a second press conference called on Saakashvili to stand down.

"We believe that Mr Saakashvili cannot be our partner in negotiations. It would be better if he went," said Lavrov during a press conference in Moscow with his Finnish counterpart and OSCE chair Alexander Stubb.

Renewed Georgian political turmoil was apparent only hours after the Russian ceasefire went into effect, with widespread Georgian media reports of Nino Burjanadze, a former prime minister who recently fell out with Saakashvili, broadly hinting she intended to challenge him sooner rather than later.

"This is not the time to make political attacks ... with Russian tanks only a few kilometres from our capital," she said. "There will be time for determining responsibility and guilt later on."

A new Georgian political party led by Burjanadze was forming and would be announced officially in coming weeks, Georgian political observers said.

Meanwhile in Tbilisi, Saakashvili announced Georgia's intention to leave the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) as a result of the hostilities with Russia and would encourage other states to do likewise.

"I have ordered everything necessary for this," Saakashvili said, according to Interfax, referring to the steps for quitting the CIS.

The Georgian leader, at a large rally in front of the Georgian parliament building, called on Ukraine and other countries to pull out of the "Russian-dominated" organization.

The CIS was founded in 1991 after the break-up of the former Soviet Union and is comprised of all the former Soviet republics except for the three Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.

Sarkozy after meeting with Medvedev in Moscow was scheduled to return to Tbilisi for further Ossetia war ceasefire talks with Polish President Lech Kaczynski, Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, and Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves.

Georgia and Russia on Tuesday already were staking out negotiating ground in the debate of separation of forces terms, with Medvedev repeating demands that no discussions could even begin, before all Georgian troops leave Ossetia and Georgia rejects force as a means of resolving territorial disputes.

Colonel General Anatoliy Nogovytsyn, the officer heading up Russia's successful offensive against Georgia, hinted at another possible Russian condition for a permanent peace, saying Georgia's military needed to be reduced in strength to make "future aggression impossible," the Interfax news agency reported.

Georgian officials however said talks on a military stand-down could not take place until a total halt to Russian military operations took place.

Russian officials on Monday announced they would consider the placement of an international peacekeeping force to help stabilize the Ossetia region.

Polish President Kaczynski speaking to reporters in Tbilisi said Polish troops might participate.

US President George W Bush on Monday condemned Russia's actions to date as a "dramatic and brutal escalation" apparently meant to oust the Georgian government.

"It now appears that an effort may be underway to depose (Georgia's) duly elected government," Bush said at the White House shortly after returning from the Olympics in Beijing. "I am deeply concerned by reports that Russian troops have moved beyond the zone of conflict."

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin retorted sharply to the US president's words, calling US support for Georgia after the destruction of the Ossetian city Tskhinvali and the death of hundreds of its citizens under Georgian artillery fire "an example of truly startling cynicism."

Russian officials led by Putin have repeatedly cited NATO attacks on Serbia during the 1999 Kosovo war as justification for Russian attacks on Georgia during the present Ossetia war.