Georgian Parliament Speaker Irakli Kobakhidze / Photo from Wikipedia

Georgian Parliament Speaker Irakli Kobakhidze resigned on Friday, a day after violent protests outside the parliament building rocked Tbilisi, the ruling Georgian Dream party's secretary general Kakha Kaladze said.

Hundreds of people, both protesters and police officers, were injured in the clashes, some of them seriously, as demonstrators pushed against lines of riot police, threw bottles and stones, and grabbed riot shields, drawing a tough response, Reuters said.

Read alsoHow visit of "Orthodox" Russian delegation to Georgia led to mass protests in Tbilisi

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They had been protesting over a visit to the parliament by a Russian lawmaker.

A coalition of opposition parties in Georgia on Friday demanded the interior minister's resignation, the release of protesters detained the previous night, and talks on holding an early parliamentary election, one opposition leader said.

Tamar Kordzaia, leader of the opposition Republican Party, said that the opposition would continue to hold protests to press it case for those demands.

Georgia's president later called Russia "an enemy and occupier" and suggested Moscow had helped trigger protests that rocked Tbilisi, but the Kremlin on Friday blamed radical Georgian politicians for what it called "an anti-Russian provocation."