BERLIN (AFP) -- Germany's foreign minister embarked Thursday on a trip to Georgia and Russia to float an international peace plan aimed at ending a dangerous dispute over the separatist Georgian region of Abkhazia.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier was bound first for Tbilisi and later the Black Sea city of Batumi to hold talks with the Georgian government and opposition figures.
""Germany has long been engaged in trying to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict,"" ministry spokesman Andreas Peschke told reporters when he announced the trip, adding that the visit was part of international efforts to cool tempers in the region.
""The goal of the trip is to find with all the affected parties ways out the logic of escalation, out of this spiral of constantly escalating incidents. It is about building trust and creating the specific conditions for a solution that will be acceptable for all.""
Georgia gained independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and Germany was the first country to recognize it.
Tensions with Russia have soared in recent months over Tbilisi's bid to join NATO and Moscow's support for two separatist territories, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which broke away from the rest of Georgia in the 1990s.
Germany chairs the so-called United Nations Group of Friends of the Secretary General on Georgia, which also comprises Britain, France, Russia and the United States.
Berlin has drawn up a three-stage plan to settle the conflict between Georgia and Abkhazia, which has threatened to explode into war.
The second stage would involve developing joint reconstruction projects while the third and most difficult step would determine Abkhazia's future status.
German diplomatic sources said the trip would involve vetting specific initial steps with all sides to find a viable way forward.
The speaker of the Georgian parliament, David Bakradze, hailed Steinmeier's visit late Wednesday as ""a serious step towards modernization of the (Russia-led) peacekeeping operation format"" in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
However, ""at this stage it is premature to talk about implementation of the three-stage (conflict resolution) plan proposed by Germany,"" Bakradze told reporters.
Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh said this week he could not ""consider the plan,"" according to Russian news agencies.
""We do not intend to discuss Abkhazia's political status with anyone. We are constructing an independent and democratic state,"" Bagapsh said as quoted by Interfax.
Steinmeier met with visiting UN chief Ban Ki-moon Tuesday and called Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week to discuss Abkhazia.
Lavrov told him that Moscow wanted both ""sides to accept obligations not to use force,"" and for Georgian troops to pull out of the strategic Kodori Gorge in Abkhazia, the Russian foreign ministry said.