November 5-6, 2013 in Geneva was held the 25th round of the international discussions on security and stability in Transcaucasia. It was attended by the delegations of the Republic of South Ossetia, the Republic of Abkhazia, Georgia, the Russian Federation, the United States, as well as representatives from the EU, the OSCE and the UN. South Ossetian delegation was led by Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy for post-conflict settlement Murat Dzhioev.
The Geneva talks held in accordance with the Medvedev -Sarkozy agreements of August 12 and September 8, 2008, focused on the discussion of non-use of force by Georgia against South Ossetia and Abkhazia and security in the region. The South Ossetian delegation urged to speed up the work on the preparation for the signing of a legally binding bilateral agreement on non-use of force between Georgia and the Republic of South Ossetia, Georgia and the Republic of Abkhazia; the relevant draft agreements had been proposed previously. As an important intermediate step towards the preparation of a legally binding agreement and in support of the unilateral declarations of non-use of force, as well as the confirmation of the general principle of the commitment to non-use of force, made by presidents of South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Georgia, the South Ossetian delegation proposed to adopt a joint statement of the panelists, who had been working on the draft of the statement. However, the non-constructive position of the Georgian delegation has not once again made it possible to adopt the joint statement. The work of the experts on the text of the draft statement will be continued.
Discussing the issues of stability and security along the South Ossetian -Georgian border, the panelists noted the effectiveness and appropriateness of the mechanisms to prevent and respond to incidents, functioning under the auspices of the Geneva process.
South Ossetian representatives have once again emphasized that all the works of the South Ossetian side to define the border line between the Republic of South Ossetia and Georgia and its fixation are carried out in full accordance with the legislation and the sovereign right of the Republic of South Ossetia and contribute to the stability in the border area. The materials submitted by the South Ossetian delegation completely refuted the previous statement of the Georgian side about the alleged violations of the rights of inhabitants of the villages Ditsi and Dvani, and also showed humane approach of the South Ossetian authorities to understanding the needs of residents of the border areas.
However, representatives of South Ossetia again called on the Georgian authorities to start a joint work on the delimitation and demarcation of the state border.
Detailed discussion took place on humanitarian issues, the most important of which was to address the issue of the fate of the missing citizens of South Ossetia, as well as the citizens of South Ossetia unreasonably convicted in Georgia. A question was raised about violations of human rights of residents of South Ossetia, the Russian citizens, traveling abroad.
In order to streamline the discussion of issues, some of them were discussed at the joint meeting of the two working groups.
Within the framework of the 25th round of discussions the international experts conducted an information session on pragmatic approaches to freedom of movement.
The 26 round of the Geneva discussions is scheduled for December 17 – 18, 2013.
