MOSCOW (AFP) - Moscow moved closer Wednesday to recognising the independence of Georgian separatist regions, escalating a bruising international row over Russia's assault on the ex-Soviet republic. In Abkhazia, a strategically placed Black Sea province, the separatist parliament and president issued an appeal asking Russia to recognise their independence, an AFP correspondent said. The leader of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity, told Interfax news agency that his separatist region would issue a similar appeal soon. The deputy speaker of the Russian parliament's upper house, the Federation Council, announced an emergency session Monday to debate recognising Abkhazia and also South Ossetia - both under control of Russian troops since last week. "The Federation Council is ready to recognise the independent status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia if that is what the people of these republics want," Interfax news agency quoted council speaker Sergei Mironov as saying. Recognition by Moscow of the two regions would deal pro-Western Georgia a huge blow, dramatically deepening a diplomatic crisis caused by Russia's huge military incursion. President Dmitry Medvedev has promised to complete a withdrawal, as agreed in a French-brokered plan, by the weekend. However there was no evidence Wednesday of a significant pullout, AFP reporters in Georgia and in South Ossetia said. Meanwhile, Turkey has approved transit of two US warships into the Black Sea to transport humanitarian relief supplies to conflict-torn Georgia, the State Department announced Wednesday. The United States has seen some signs of a Russian withdrawal from Georgia but Moscow needs to step up its pullout, a White House spokesman said Wednesday. "We are beginning to see the early signs of some withdrawal. It is not significant and it needs to increase," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters on Air Force One. Russia on Wednesday circulated a draft resolution on the situation in Georgia at the Security Council, the UN ambassador from Belgium told reporters at the United Nations. "On Georgia, the Russian Ambassador has circulated a draft resolution" among the 15 Council members, said Belgium's Jan Grauls, the Council president for the month of August. Asked to say if the draft was meant to substitute for the French text Moscow rejected Tuesday, Grauls said, "That was not announced." Shortly afterward, Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin confirmed having circulated the draft, saying "it's just a verbatim reiteration" of the Russia-Georgia peace deal negotiated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Churkin on Tuesday rejected a draft resolution submitted by France on behalf of European members, demanding Russia comply with the ceasefire and withdraw all its troops from Georgia. Churkin, whose country is a veto-wielding Security Council member, said his delegation would not accept the text because it included only two of the six points listed in the peace deal brokered by Sarkozy. The text of the French draft, debated during an emergency council meeting on Tuesday, "demands full and immediate compliance with the ceasefire to which the parties have subscribed." The draft also "demands the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces to the lines held prior to the outbreak of hostilities (on August 7) and the return of Georgian forces to their usual bases."