The tenth meeting of representatives of the South Ossetian and Georgian civil society was being held on January 11-14, 2012 in the town of Bethlehem (Israel) within the framework of social dialogue "Viewpoint." This has been reported to IA "Res" by one of the participants of the meeting, the Chairman of the South Ossetian Women's Association for Democracy and Human Rights Lira Tskhovrebova. According to her, the meetings are conducted by the Faculty of Analysis and Conflict Resolution at the George Mason University since December 2008. "No any political issues are discussed at these meetings; each participant has his own position.
We, in turn, attend these meetings as representatives of the civil society, the independent Republic of South Ossetia, and this issue is not a subject for discussion and revision, "- Tskhovrebova has underlined. She has said that this format of the meetings is very important, because the parties learn a lot about each other, discussing socio-economic issues, socio-political situation in their countries."Participants of the meetings do not represent any organization or government agency, they act on behalf of themselves" - Lira Tskhovrebova said. In her opinion, at present no any political relations can be established between South Ossetia and Georgia. "But we're looking for any common ground, we discuss what could be done by the civil society of both countries in order to bring any benefit to their fellow citizens - Tskhovrebova has specified. - In particular, we get a lot of help in finding of the missing people, trying to influence on the issue of violation of prisoners' rights." Tskhovrebova stressed that the issue of transferring technical documentation of Zonkarsky reservoir to the South Ossetian side had been also solved at these meetings. "Within the framework of social dialogue the meetings are always attended by representatives of international organizations, who listen to both sides, and thus, they learn the first-hand truthful information about events in our country," - Tskhovrebova has told. She stressed that all the existing problems between the Republic of South Ossetia and Georgia should be resolved only within the format of negotiations.
