The South Ossetian side said that the situation on the border with Georgia is extremely tense, there is a threat to security not only in the district, but in the region as a whole. This was announced by the head of the South Ossetian delegation at the meetings within the framework of the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanisms (PRMI) Yegor Kochiev.
According to him, the meeting began in the morning at 10 o’clock, and ended at 15.00.
“One issue was discussed - an emergency situation in the vicinity of the village of Uista (Tsnelis), where the Georgian special services put up a “police post”, as they call it themselves, in order to provoke. The only requirement of our side is that the Georgian police leave the region,” Kochiev said.
He has added that the discussion of this issue lasted five hours, the South Ossetian party proposed various options for solving this problem, including holding a technical meeting in the village of Uista, on Friday at eleven o’clock in the morning. “We wanted to show the Georgian party on the spot that to put up this roadblock is a threat. The only condition for the technical meeting we announced the termination of the works for equipping the post. But the Georgian party did not agree to any of our conditions.
Kochiev has noted that the South Ossetian delegation has a completely different opinion, and believes that the post is a threat, since the South Ossetian settlement is 240-250 meters from the post, and about two kilometers to the nearest Georgian. “In addition, a road was cut through by Georgian police at night and a post was put up right above the South Ossetian village. In this area, we have long been offering the Georgian counterparts to sit down at the negotiating table and designate the line for crossing the state border.
But the Georgian representatives claim that the post has been put up on the Georgian territory, while they cannot provide any documents confirming their unfounded statements,” said Yegor Kochiev.
According to him, the post was put up strictly in the South Ossetian territory, and they have documents confirming the state border line, including the Decree of 1922, which assigns this territory to the then South Ossetian Autonomous Region.
“The South Ossetian party interrupted the dialogue, since the Georgian party did not compromise and did not want to hear the arguments of reason. The South Ossetian delegation has set a condition to remove the post before 6 a.m. on Friday, or we will take all measures prescribed by law to protect the population from emerging threats,” the Deputy Envoy said.
He has also added that the residents of the Ossetian village were frightened by the appearance of the Georgian post and appealed to the leadership of South Ossetia for help. “And it will be provided for them,” says Kochiev. “We will protect our territory by all possible means provided for by the legislation of the Republic of South Ossetia.”
According to the head of the South Ossetian delegation, the international organizations that take part in the IPRM meetings, only declare the inadmissibility of escalation of tension, but not any proposal has been received from them
“Usually they take a constructive position with proposals, but this time we did not hear any proposals from them,” Kochiev said.
