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Georgia's Deputy Prime Minister told a London audience that President Mikheil Saakashvili had "admitted" he made "mistakes" over his handling of the media and relations with the opposition.

Although he spent most of his time at a meeting of the London Young Fabians defending the government he did make it clear he thought the administration needed better relations with the opposition and a freer media, saying:

"We had serious problems in 2007 and Georgian government and president has admitted making mistakes ... as I have said we had a problem in this regard [media freedom] in 2007 with [unclear] on the streets clashes between demonstrators and police and [unclear] days, we, government has closed one of the TV channels, independent TV channel, which now of course operates and resumed its broadcasting, but it is certainly something that we regret and something that we deem as a mistake." (download mp3 file)

The Georgian International Media Centre can find no record of President Mikheil Saakashvili having admitted to making mistakes on either media freedom or relations with the opposition.

It is not the first time Baramidze has appeared to distance himself from President Saakashvili and the "mistakes" of the government. In March he attacked the halving of the sentences of the convicted killers of Sandro Girgvliani as "a big mistake". (The killers have since been released).

Baramidze was previously seen as an ally of the late Prime Minister, and Rose Revolution leader, Zurab Zhvania and refused to rule-out the possibility that the former PM had been murdered by his political enemies inside the regime.