Representatives of South Ossetia at the Geneva discussions reiterated 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 remove a wide range of problems for the population on both sides of the border, the South Ossetian delegation said in a final message to the media on Thursday.
“The discussion continued on the ways to develop a joint statement by all participants in the Discussions on their commitment to the principle of 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 text says.
On December 10-11, 2020, the 50th round of the International Security Discussions in Trans caucasia took place in Geneva. It was attended by delegations of the Republic of South Ossetia, the Republic of Abkhazia, Georgia, the Russian Federation, the United States, as well as the EU, UN and OSCE representatives. The South Ossetian delegation was led by the Presidential Plenipotentiary for Post-Conflict Resolution, Murat Dzhioev.
In accordance with established practice, the work took place in two working groups: on security and humanitarian issues.
The participants in the meeting were unanimous in their opinion regarding the high importance of the Geneva format, which for 11 years was an effective mechanism for maintaining regional security. At the same time, the general atmosphere of the meeting 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, having penetrated into the territory of South Ossetia, illegally erected a fortified stationary police post on August 23, 2019.
"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 the attempts to hush up the responsibility of the initiator of the new exacerbation and invited the Georgian party to remove the illegal post, withdraw representatives of its security forces to Georgia and begin to consider the possibility of establishing a zone security in the border area from the village of Tsnelis (Uista) to the Georgian village of Chorchana, "the statement said.
The South Ossetian party reiterated the importance of discussing the situation within the framework of the joint Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM) and confirmed its readiness to continue working in this format.
