TBILISI (Reuters) -- Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said that he wanted to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin at the summit of ex-Soviet leaders in Minsk next week to find a way out of the crisis between the two countries. "I hope we'll exchange opinions with the Russian president," Saakashvili told reporters. "I don't know whether this meeting will take place, but I'll definitely go to the summit."

Relations between Georgia and Russia worsened dramatically in September, when Georgia arrested and deported four Russian army officers accused of spying.

Russia hit back by imposing an air, sea and postal blockade on its small southern neighbor, cracking down on Georgians suspected of being involved in organized crime and deporting hundreds of Georgian nationals without proper residency papers.

Russia's state-controlled gas monopoly, Gazprom, said earlier this month it wanted to more than double the price it charges Georgia for gas supplies to $230 per 1,000 cubic meters, close to the levels it charges its western European customers.

Putin and Saakashvili will attend the summit of post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States in the Belarus capital on Nov. 28.

The Kremlin took a cautious note on the possible meeting of the two in Minsk.

"Certain signals have indeed been received from the Georgian side at various levels and currently they are being examined," a Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters on the sidelines of an EU-Russia summit in Helsinki.

"The summit in Minsk is coming up very soon and, correspondingly, we will see how events develop there," he added.

The Georgian and Russian presidents have had four one-on-one meetings since Saakashvili came to power in January 2004. Their last meeting, in St Petersburg on June 13, led to no solution.

Saakashvili cancelled a visit to Moscow for an informal summit of ex-Soviet heads of state in July, saying Putin refused to meet him to discuss uneasy relations.

Saakashvili says Moscow is punishing him for his pro-Western policies. Moscow says the Georgian leadership is fanning confrontation with Russia to distract attention from its domestic failings.

"It's in Georgia's interests to normalize relations with Russia. I think Russia should be interested in it as well as we need to rake aside our problems, which impede relations between our countries," Saakashvili said.