"This timeframe remains at the basis of negotiations between Moscow and Tbilisi," the official said under condition of anonymity.

Georgia has insisted that Russia withdraw its two remaining army bases in three years. Russia initially said it needed 11 years.

However, a deputy head of Russia's General Chiefs of Staff, Yury Baluyevsky, on Monday slightly softened Moscow's position.

"It's possible that the process can be accomplished in seven to nine years," the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.

But Baluyevsky was adamant that Tbilisi's timetable of three years for the withdrawal was "unrealistic."

The withdrawal of the bases -- one of the main disputes between the neighbouring states -- is conditioned on Tbilisi agreeing to fund facilities in Russia to house Russian soldiers pulled out from Georgia, the senior official said Wednesday, adding this would cost "a few hundred million dollars".

"The withdrawal will only begin following the signature of an ad hoc intergovernmental agreement between Russia and Georgia," the official said.

Under accords hammered out at a 1999 summit of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Russia agreed to close the four bases it had maintained in Georgia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

It has withdrawn from two of them, but negotiations over the timetable for the removal of the other two, in the western town of Batumi and the southern one of Akhalkalaki, have long been stalled.

Officially, 8,000 troops are based in the remaining facilities.

Washington has offered to provide financial assistance to persuade Russia to pull out its troops faster than planned.

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