* Russian troops in Georgian Black Sea port of Poti

* Moscow says it is complying with ceasefire terms

* Sarkozy urges Medvedev to pull out troops

* U.S. says conflict boosts Georgia's NATO membership hopes

By Niko Mchedlishvili

POTI, Georgia, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Russia said on Saturday its troops would patrol one of Georgia's main Black Sea ports, defying Western demands for a complete pullback to positions held before fighting broke out over a Georgian rebel region.

Moscow said it had honoured a ceasefire deal by pulling back most of its forces, but troops remained deep inside Georgia on what the Kremlin calls a peacekeeping operation.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who helped broker a ceasefire in the two-week-old confrontation, urged Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to order his forces out of the port of Poti in a telephone conversation on Saturday.

"President Sarkozy insisted it was important that Russian troops present at the Poti/Senaki area should withdraw as soon as possible," said a statement from the French government, which holds the EU presidency.

The tone contrasted with the Kremlin readout of the same conversation, which said Sarkozy had given a "positive assessment" of the Russian pullout.

The conflict erupted on Aug. 7-8 when Georgia tried to retake South Ossetia in a conflict in which hundreds were killed and tens of thousands displaced.

A Russian counter-offensive pushed into Georgia proper, crossing its main East-West highway and nearing a Western-backed oil pipeline. They also moved into Western Georgia from Abkhazia, a second rebel region on the Black Sea.

Poti, which is economically vital for Georgia, lies outside the security zone Russia says is covered by its peacekeeping mandate and is hundreds of kilometres (miles) from breakaway South Ossetia province, the focus of the war.

A group of 20 Russian soldiers manned a checkpoint on the main road leading to Poti on Saturday, but did not stop traffic. Up to 1,000 Georgians gathered to protest.

"While we are still alive we will not allow them to stay here," said 60-year-old Roland Silagava.

Russia says the patrols are in line with the French-brokered ceasefire which said Russian troops must return to positions held before the war over South Ossetia. But it allowed peacekeepers to take unspecified "additional security measures."

"FASTER NATO MEMBERSHIP"

Sarkozy said on Aug. 16 such measures could only be used in the "immediate proximity of South Ossetia".

Paris said Sarkozy and Medvedev agreed on the urgency of setting up an international mechanism under the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to replace Russian patrols in the buffer zone south of South Ossetia.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said only peacekeepers from countries acceptable to South Ossetian and Abkhazian separatists could be effective in the region, and made clear they will not accept anyone apart from Russians.

Moscow says its peacekeepers are needed to prevent further bloodshed. Tbilisi and its Western allies say they will help give Russia a stranglehold over a country that lies on a transit route for energy exports from the Caspian Sea.

The U.S. envoy to the Caucasus said Russia had hastened Georgia's bid for NATO membership with its military actions. Moscow sees Georgia and other ex-Soviet republics as part of its legitimate sphere of influence and opposes them joining NATO.

"I think what Russia has done now is the strongest catalyst it could have created to get Georgia in NATO," U.S. envoy Matthew Bryza told Ekho Moskvy radio.

"STATE OF WAR"

The Georgian parliament voted to keep its armed forces on a state of heightened readiness and reservists mobilised.

The conflict has left the United States, NATO and the European Union groping for a response. Beyond freezing NATO's contacts with Russia, the West looks to have little influence over Russia, one of its main energy suppliers.

A U.S. trade official said Russia's actions could affect its membership of the Group of Eight industrialised nations and its bid to join the World Trade Organisation.

Moscow set itself a deadline of Friday night to complete its pullback and by Saturday large swathes of Georgia were free of Russian forces for the first time in two weeks.

A Reuters cameraman saw Russian armour queuing two to three kilometres to get through the Roki tunnel which leads out of South Ossetia to Russia, and Reuters witnesses saw troops and armour leaving Abkhazia, about 80 km (50 miles) from Poti.

Russian checkpoints were gone from the main highway linking the capital to the Black Sea, an economic lifeline.

In the town of Gori near to South Ossetia, the target of Russian bombing and extensive looting, the food market re-opened and elderly women swept up broken glass from the streets.

But 6 km (4 miles) to the north, a Reuters reporter saw Russian soldiers at a checkpoint in the village of Karaleti, where Georgia says Moscow has no right to station troops.

Russia denies any plans to annex Georgian territory but also says it is hard to envisage the rebel regions rejoining Georgia. (Additional reporting by Melissa Akin and Aydar Buribaev in Moscow; Liutaurus Strimaitis in Senaki, Georgia; Dmitry Solovyov in Java, Georgia and Matt Robinson in Tbilisi; Writing by Jon Boyle))

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