TKVIAVI, Georgia, Aug 19 (AFP) - Georgia and its separatist, pro-Russian republic of South Ossetia late Wednesday carried out a prisoner exchange on the frontline between the conflicting forces in the escalating conflict, Georgia`s state minister Georgi Khaindrava said.
South Ossetia handed over four Georgians, including three policemen, while Georgia released one Ossetian, he said as renewed shooting between Georgian and Ossetian forces nearby was heard.
"Four (Georgian) people have been released, three are policemen and one is a civilian that was not involved in the clashes" between Georgia and South Ossetia, Khaindrava said.
Meanwhile, Georgia released one Ossetian driver who had been arrested as he transported weapons, he added.
The policemen were seized by Ossetian forces in early July, while the Ossetian driver was arrested a month ago. It was not immediately clear when the Georgian civilian had been detained.
Ossetian authorities were expected to release Thursday another prisoner, this time a pro-Georgian Ossetian, Khaindrava said.
Intensive shooting and shelling between Georgian and South Ossetian forces broke out again as the exchange was proceeding. There were no reports of casualties.
A Georgian interior ministry spokesman, Guram Donadze, accused Ossetian forces of shooting at Georgian villages, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Meanwhile, the Russian news agencies quoted officials with South Ossetia`s defense and interior ministries as saying the Ossetian capital Tskhinvali was being shelled.
Ossetian deputy defense minister Ibragim Gassiyev told the Interfax news agency the shelling was carried out by a third force -- one which was not loyal to either Georgia, South Ossetia or Russia.
"The Ossetian side is returning fire onto the `third force`," Gassiyev said.
Russian and Georgian officials Wednesday suggested that a third force was trying to spark a conflict in South Ossetia.
Separately, protestors in Georgia`s capital Tbilisi late Wednesday demonstrated in front of the Russian embassy to demand the withdrawal of Russian troops stationed in the former Soviet republic.
Some 30 protestors used laser spotlights to project images of the Georgian flag and of the map of Georgia onto the embassy building.
"We think Russia plays a negative role in the settlement of the South Ossetian conflict and we are carrying out this action to express our opinion," one of the protesters told AFP.
Earlier Wednesday, fighting in South Ossetia killed another three Georgian servicemen and wounded five in an escalating conflict warily watched by Moscow and the West.
The deaths reflected a rise of violence in an impoverished region of Georgia, a former Soviet republic that was broken up by a series of civil wars linked to ethnic ties more than a decade ago.
The latest unrest comes as Georgia`s new leader, President Mikhail Saakashvili, tries to regain control over his state after leading a bloodless revolution that now sees Tbilisi turning toward the West but with some of its regions still showing allegiance to Russia.
Repeated fighting has undermined a ceasefire signed late last week between Georgia, Russia and South Ossetia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), in an intense drive to defuse the crisis in the region.
Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili on Wednesday called for an international conference to end the escalation of violence in South Ossetia during an address to the OSCE in Vienna.
Inhabited mainly by ethnic Ossetians, South Ossetia has enjoyed de facto independence after an armed conflict with Tbilisi following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Georgia has another separatist region, Abkhazia, which also declared independence from Tbilisi after a brutal civil war in the early 1990s.