Representatives of EU Independent Fact-Finding Mission are paying a visit to South Ossetia. The delegation is headed by HoM Ambassador Heidi Tagliavini. The delegation was received by Post-Conflict Settlement Plenipotentiary Boris Chochiev. Foreign Minister Murat Djioev and Deputy MFA Alan Pliev also participated in the meeting.
"We know that your mission was created especially to carry out a probe into august events. This is our first meeting and we are interested in cooperation with you so that you would be able to find true causes of the aggression by Georgian against South Ossetia and objectively reflect them in your report. We are interested in our truth being voiced", said Boris Chochiev when opening the meeting.
"We have nothing to hide" the quicker you learn the facts the quicker the obvious causes of the Georgian aggression find proofs. Tbilisi continues misinforming the international community and does its best to conceal the fact of aggression against South Ossetia", he stressed.
Boris Chochiev has passed on to the delegation the report made by the e-Defense Minister of Georgia Gia Karkarashvili:
"This was certainly written by Defense Minister of aggressor state, but you can use a lot in your work. He managed to disclaim the officially voiced Georgian version that the aggression was committed to allegedly prevent Russian forces" advancing into the territory".
"We fully understand how difficult your mission is and we are ready to assist you as much as possible. Once you have the results of your work, we do hope that would be able to say that this is Mission of truth, " said Boris Chochiev. He stressed that there is lack of confidence towards international organizations in South Ossetia and he expressed the hope that this visit would become exclusion.
In return, Head of Mission Ambassador Tagliavini thanked the South Ossetian side for warm welcome.
"Thank you for expressing your readiness to cooperate with our Mission. We will be dealing only with facts, not with investigation of what happened. Our goal is to learn facts, causes and cause of the events with international law and human rights aspects taken into account. It is also important to know the pre-history of the conflict, study military aspects and therefore, we have military experts within our delegation. We also study legal and humanitarian issues. The situation will be also evaluated by political scientists", said Tagliavini
According to her, the Fact-Finding Mission had earlier visited Moscow and Tbilisi.
"Our approach is extremely serious. We have elaborated a questionnaire and we would to receive a written answer to all these questions. But this is not the full list. We have a lot of material and based on that our experts will be giving their evaluation of the events. If there are any additional questions in the course of our work, we hope to be able to have another meeting or other forms of cooperation. We are interested in quick interaction and communication with all people who can give us necessary information", she stressed.
The delegation had also met representatives of law enforcement bodies and defense structures, with HR Commissioner David Sanakoev and representatives of non-governmental organizations.
The delegation is now meeting with RSO President Eduard Kokoity.
