Archive - 27/4/2010

Seminars for representatives of South Ossetian and Georgian NGOs within the frames of the project “Engagement through Dialogue” took place in Chisinau and Tiraspol. As Dina Alborova, the co-facilitator from the South Ossetian side, reported to IA RES, this project is aimed at confidence building between the two communities – South Ossetian and Georgian, after the war in August 2008. “This is a good forum for youth group meetings of our countries. The average age of the participants is 22-33, since the future depends on these young people, who will come to power tomorrow on both sides. It is crucially important that we listen to each other today”, underlined Alborova.

The first Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM) meeting was held 23 April 2009 in the village of Ergneti adjacent to the borderline with South Ossetia. The agreement on the Mechanism was reached at Geneva discussions on security in the Caucasus. Representatives of authorities of South Ossetia and Georgia, Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation, as well as officials from the OSCE and EU. The aim of the IPRM, as seen by the initiators, is to defuse tensions and facilitate confidence building between South Ossetia and Georgia.

The visit of the PACE Monitoring Committee David Wilshire to the Embassy of the Republic of South Ossetia in the Russian Federation is aimed at showing the interest of this organization in receiving information not only from the Georgian side, reported political science expert Inal Pliev. “I do hope that PACE has changed its initial policy of complete ignoring of the reality and that the information provided by the South Ossetian side would be reflected in the report “On the consequences of the war between Georgia and Russia” to be presented by David Wilshire and his colleague Matias Eorsi at the Assembly session on 28 April”, said Pliev. According to the expert, “the true discontent of Tbilisi is not in the fact that the meeting was held at the Embassy, but that the meeting could have take place at all.

On 23 April, a delegation of Transdnestria paid an official visit to the Republic of South Ossetia. The delegation was headed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Transdnestria Vladimir Yastrebchak. The purpose of the visit was to deliver congratulatory messages from the President of Transdnestria Igor Smirnov to the veterans of the Great Patriotic War and participate in awarding ceremony on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the Victory Day.