(Reuters) - Britain has frozen its annual security dialogue with Georgia and cancelled other talks on defence over concerns about democratic backsliding, Britain's ambassador to Tbilisi was cited as saying by Georgian media on Tuesday.

"I had expected that we would work together to strengthen Georgia's resilience and our common prosperity, but over the past year the Georgian government has chosen a different course," Ambassador Gareth Ward told the InterPress news agency.

The Georgian government's actions had prompted Britain to raise "concerns about the decline of democracy and anti-Western rhetoric", he said.

(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)