GEORGIA?S Defence Minister said yesterday that he had no orders from President Eduard Shevardnadze to use force to suppress the Opposition?s ?velvet revolution?, but the army was ready to stop a political crisis from escalating.

Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, who flew into Tbilisi overnight, shuttled between meetings with the Opposition and Shevardnadze to try to broker a solution after protesters stormed Parliament on Saturday demanding Shevardnadze to resign. One Opposition leader later said that talks on a ?reasonable compromise? were possible.

Defence Minister, David Tevzadze, speaking for the first time since the siege at the Parliament building, implied the army was still under presidential control. ?The army has not received orders from the Commander General to use force,? he told reporters at his headquarters. ?The army is paying a lot of attention to the events and is ready to stop the escalation of chaos and to fulfil its responsibility.?

Earlier, Shevardnadze said if Parliament did not back his state of emergency decree, as the constitution requires, the army would take control of the Black Sea state.

?Electoral fraud?

Local television suggested Shevardnadze might try to summon enough deputies loyal to him at his residence. Georgia?s crisis was triggered by November 2 elections which opposition parties say Shevardnadze rigged.

Over the next two weeks, near daily protests grew and so did the demonstrators? grievances. In addition to accusing Shevardnadze of electoral fraud, they said he dragged the country into poverty and despair through years of misrule.

Western powers have urged all parties to exercise restraint in the impoverished former Soviet Caucasus state of five million. Trouble could threaten a planned oil pipeline through Georgia from neighbouring Azerbaijan to Turkey.

Opposition leader, Nino Burdzhanadze, who declared on Saturday she was taking on the functions of the President, said compromise talks were possible but called for new elections.

?Of course we are ready for a reasonable compromise and for talks, Burdzhanadze, the outgoing Parliament Speaker, told local television, but a reasonable compromise means that those people who stand outside Parliament should not be cheated. Without new elections there is no realistic way to resolve this crisis.?

A state of emergency, declared by Shevardnadze, did not stop thousands of Georgians from dancing the night away to folk music around the burning embers of fires outside Parliament. They said they believed Shevardnadze?s resignation was imminent.

Opposition supporters for Shevardnadze

?It is very important to tell the Minister and the world that the Georgian people will not step back,? said Mikhail Saakashvili, a 35-year-old US educated lawyer groomed by Shevardnadze and now the Opposition?s driving force. ?There must be a peaceful change of power,? he told reporters.

Shevardnadze has said he will not resign. Russia, the main power in the region, and other ex-Soviet states said seizure of power by illegal means was unacceptable. ?It is critically important for us that everything proceeds according to the constitution and the law,? said Ivanov.

He was cheered by Opposition supporters outside Parliament despite Georgians? traditional Opposition to interference from Moscow, their former Soviet ruler.

He hugged one Opposition activist, Zurab Zhvania, and spoke a few Georgian words learned from his Georgian mother. Shevardnadze?s opponents said talks with Ivanov were ?good?.

In Washington, a state department spokesman said US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, spoke by telephone with Shevardnadze stressing that any action should be within the bounds of the constitution.

Opposition leaders declared their protest part of a ?velvet revolution? ? a reference to the bloodless 1989 collapse of communism in Czechoslovakia ? to oust a corrupt administration.

Shevardnadze, 75 years old, is an adept tactician with decades of experience who was widely admired a decade ago for taking power when Georgia was in the throes of civil war. Many Georgians have since tired of his rule and the country?s slide into poverty.

Elizabeth Piper

A cool head in emotional Georgia

• Opposition politician, Nino Burdzhanadze, who said on Saturday she was taking on the duties of Georgian President from Eduard Shevardnadze, cuts an unusually calm figure among her emotional countrymen.

A lawyer with internationally published essays, Burdzhanadze has been considered the other half in a partnership formed with Georgia?s main Opposition leader Mikhail Saakashvili, for the purpose of removing the veteran President.

Her measured words and appeals for calm have balanced the strident pose of Saakashvili, the main force behind some of the biggest Georgian protests in a decade. ?We should be calm and organised,? she told supporters during and after they stormed Parliament, forcing Shevardnadze to flee in confusion as he was addressing the new Assembly?s inaugural session after a disputed election. She also thanked the police and army ?who did not raise their hands against the peaceful people of their own country?. Burdzhanadze, 39 and married with two children, seems an unlikely leader of what Saakashvili has called a ?velvet revolution?, referring to the bloodless 1989 end of communism in Czechoslovakia. Buttoned up in tailored suits, many say she reminds them of a school head mistress. Her clipped but elegant Georgian goes straight to the point. Widely popular among women, she has been twice elected to Georgia?s Parliament since she ended lengthy studies and consulting work at the Environment Ministry and Parliament?s Committee on Foreign Relations. Like Saakashvili, Burdzhanadze once backed Georgia?s now embattled President, who took power in 1992 after a period of huge upheaval following the collapse of communism.