Georgia's acting president Nino Burdzhanadze said she believed Eduard Shevardnadze had left the country after resigning as president on Sunday, but a spokesman for the ex-president said he remained in Tbilisi.

"I understand he left the country and I don't know where he is," she told CNN.

She said she had had no communication with him but had been told he had left, though she did not say by whom.

A spokesman for Shevardnadze said he had remained at his residence on the outskirts of Tbilisi where he had announced his resignation.

"Shevardnadze is in the residence with his family and he has no intention of leaving the country, at least tonight", Soso Tkebuchava, Shevardnadze's spokesman, told Reuters.

In announcing his resignation, Shevardnadze told reporters that he was "going home". He gave no further details and said it was "not my business" who would succeed him as president.

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