A meeting between the delegation of the Geneva talks Co-Chairs of the EU, OSCE and UN and the discussions’ South Ossetian participants – Special Representative for Post-Conflict Settlement Boris Chochiev, Foreign Minister Murat Djioev and others, was held in Tskhinval. The Co-Chairs’ Delegation was headed by the EU Envoy Pierre Morel. It is worth mentioning that after Kazakhstan has assumed the OSCE Chairmanship, the Organization is represented at the Discussions in Geneva by Ambassador Bolat Nurgaliev. Boris Chochiev had expressed his assuredness that the participation of new representatives in the Geneva Discussions would give new impetus to the talks.
According to Chochiev, the situation was difficult and the 9th round of talks would not be easy either.
“The more we work, the more we are interested in concrete results”. “Our southern neighbors continue to organize provocations, abduct our citizens and groundlessly blame us in many faults. This is the result of the fact that the aggressor did not receive any corresponding international assessment to its criminal actions. The Georgian authorities did not calm down event after the publication of the report of Tagliavini’s Commission, where thing were clearly explained”, said Chochiev. He emphasized that the South Ossetian side can provide proved evidences of Georgia’s being prepared for a new war. “In this situation the most important is to force Saakashvili regime to work out and sign a draft paper on non-use of force. Though before the Geneva discussions there were Memoranda and Dagomyss Agreements signed, Georgia had nonetheless committed an aggression”, underlined Chochiev.
He informed the visitors that in December South Ossetia had handed over the detained teenagers to Georgia, “and five illegally kept South Ossetians were handed over to our side”. “We had also received representatives of some non-governmental organizations of Georgia with the facilitation of the CoE HR Commissioner Tomas Hammarberg. We expected response actions, but none of the detainees was handed over to us. There is still no information about our citizens and this has a negative impact on our work and on the work of the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism”, he added. “We should find a way out of this situation and the 9th round of talks should yield some results”. In his turn, Pierre Morel underlined that though there are new participants from among international organizations, “we still adhere to the previous line in our work regardless the changes”. “Before we start the talk, I would like to note that if people who cross the border are subjected to administrative actions, not judicial, it will significantly ease the dialogue between the sides”, said Morel.
The meeting continued behind closed door.
