Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said during judicial proceedings in Tbilisi on Wednesday that, while he was president, he secretly met with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in London to persuade him that Belarus should not recognize Abkhazia's and South Ossetia's independence.

Lukashenko said in an earlier interview with journalist Vladimir Soloviev, shown on the Soloviev Live YouTube channel, that he could not rule out that Belarus might recognize Abkhazia's and South Ossetia's independence one day.

The Georgian Foreign Ministry said the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was not on the Georgian-Belarusian bilateral agenda.

"I visited London four times and met secretly with Lukashenko regarding his non-recognition of Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region. This is the first time I am speaking about this. This was quiet diplomacy, which has brought about a tangible result," he said.

Saakashvili served as Georgian president for two consecutive terms from 2004 to 2013.

Saakashvili, currently a citizen of Ukraine, secretly arrived in Georgia on September 29 and was detained in Tbilisi on October 1 and put in jail in the city of Rustavi soon afterwards, where he declared a hunger strike. On November 8, he was transferred to the prison infirmary in Tbilisi's Gldani district without the consent of his lawyers and family. On November 20, Saakashvili was transferred to a military hospital in Gori, where he stopped his hunger strike. Saakashvili was brought back to the Rustavi prison on December 30.

Saakashvili has been convicted in Georgia in absentia in several criminal cases and is being treated as a suspect in some others. He has described his detention as unlawful and the charges brought against him as falsified.