The general atmosphere at the next round in Geneva was complicated due to the aggravation of the situation on the border with Georgia around the South Ossetian village of Tsnelis (Uista), in the immediate vicinity of which the Georgian security forces, delving into South Ossetia, on August 23, 2019 illegally put up a fortified stationary police post, the press service of the post of the South Ossetian Plenipotentiary Envoy for post-conflict settlement said in a statement.
The 49th round of the International Discussions on Security and Stability in Transcaucasia, held in accordance with the Medvedev-Sarkozy agreements of August 12 and September 8, 2008, took place on October 8-9, 2019 in Geneva. The discussions were attended by delegations of the Republic of South Ossetia, the Republic of Abkhazia, Georgia, the Russian Federation, the USA, as well as the EU, UN and OSCE. Representatives. The South Ossetian delegation was led by Presidential Plenipotentiary for Post-Conflict Resolution Murat Dzhioev.
As noted by the plenipotentiary’s press service, in order to de-escalate and return to the situation that existed before August 23, the South Ossetian delegation drew the attention of other delegations to attempts to hush up the responsibility of the initiator of the new aggravation and offered the Georgian party to remove the illegal post and withdraw representatives of its security forces to Georgian territory and begin to consider the possibility of establishing a security zone in the border area from the village of Tsnelis (Uista) to the Georgian settlement of Chorchana.
“The South Ossetian party noted the importance of discussing the current situation within the framework of the joint incident prevention and response mechanism (IPRM), it was again confirmed the readiness to continue working in this format. In addition, representatives of South Ossetia again presented the justification for the need to work together with representatives of the Georgian authorities on the delimitation of the South Ossetian-Georgian state border, as this could resolve wide range of problems for the population on both sides of the border,” the press service said.
There was continued a discussion of ways to develop a joint statement by all participants in the Discussions on their commitment to the principle of the non-use of force.
“It was emphasized that the South Ossetian delegation considered such a statement as a necessary and important step towards providing strong security guarantees for South Ossetia and Abkhazia and strengthening the existing regional security structure,” the press service said.
A discussion of humanitarian issues took place in the second working group.
“Despite the extremely destructive position of the Georgian participants and rude attacks on the South Ossetian, Russian and Abkhaz sides, the South Ossetian delegation raised a number of important issues, the central place among which was the issue of the missing South Ossetian citizens in Georgia. South Ossetian participants noted the importance of this problem, progress in the solution of which can become an important element in building trust between the neighboring states and will positively affect the atmosphere of the Geneva discussions. It was hoped that an international expert Dushan Ignatovich would continue to clarify the fate of the Ossetians abducted by Georgian police in October 2008,” the press service said.
The Ossetian participants again drew attention to the ongoing violations by Georgia of the rights of the Ossetians - natives of the Kazbegi region (Tyrsygom), who for several years could not gain access to their real estate remaining in Georgia due to an unmotivated ban imposed by the Georgian authorities.
“An exchange of views also took place on a number of other humanitarian issues, including the return to the Republic of South Ossetia of the historical and cultural values that were stolen and are now in Georgia,” the press service said.
The discussion on the refugee problem was not held. The resumption of discussions on refugee issues will become possible only if Georgia stops trying to artificially politicize this problem and exclusively at the platforms to which the South Ossetian side has access.
On the eve of the 49th round of discussions, an information session was held on the problem of epidemic infectious diseases.
The next meeting of the Geneva discussions is scheduled to be held in December 2019.
