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President Mikheil Saakashvili, who said Russia wanted to take control of the Caspian Sea energy region by 2013, according to Azeri state media. A pipeline that crosses Georgian territory from Azerbaijan to Turkey was just 60 km from the fighting between Russian and Georgian forces during August's conflict.

"Monopolism in the gas sphere is unacceptable," state television showed Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus as telling the summit.

The United States Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told the summit that the war in Georgia "showed the importance of the diversification of energy".

"I believe that the new U.S. administration will continue to strongly cooperate with the countries of the region in the energy sphere," Bodman said.

Azerbaijan is the only ex-Soviet state which supplies large amounts of crude and gas to world markets bypassing Russia thanks to the BP-led Baku-Ceyhan pipeline to Turkey and a BP and StatoilHydro-led gas link to Turkey.

A flurry of other alternative projects that would escape Moscow's grip over energy export routes have been masterminded in the region in the past decade, but they have been on ice for years either due to financing problems or the lack of resources to justify their construction.

"Projects on the Caspian Sea are open for cooperation. Any country can take part in them. They do not contradict each other, they should compete," Azeri president Ilham Aliyev said.

Among the projects backed by Moscow's critics was the U.S.-backed Nabucco gas pipeline project that would bypass Russian territory to supply Europe.