President of South Ossetia Anatoly Bibilov has met with the representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on missing persons in the Caucasus Daniel McSweeney, the press service of the head of state reports.
The head of state has noted that he highly appreciates the work of the ICRC in the search for missing persons, but at the same time expressed regret that there was no effective progress.
“Understanding the pain of families, it would be desirable that the work in this direction was more effective. There is full contact and interaction between the South Ossetian side and the ICRC, and the level of representatives in this work is quite high: this is the Presidential Commissioner for Human Rights and the Presidential Envoy for Post-Conflict Resolution. We have carefully studied your proposals, these proposals are appropriate, but I regret to note that they are of a declarative nature. It would be good to work out the steps that would make it possible to find the citizens of South Ossetia.
I would like to stress once again that the Republic of South Ossetia has done a lot to find the missing and hand them over to the Georgian side. To date, 130 families in South Ossetia cannot bury their relatives humanly. It was definitely known about three citizens who were detained, and there was a video where they were interrogated in the walls of the Georgian prison, but, unfortunately, there is no information about these persons. We have noted Georgia's frivolous approach to this issue and, despite the change in leadership, we do not see any concrete steps, ”he said.
Anatoly Bibilov expressed hope for a new round of effective development of work. He emphasized that the relatives of the missing persons should be able to find out about their relatives everything that happened to them and where they are, and they should be returned to their families alive or dead.
For his part, Daniel McSweeney expressed gratitude to the head of state for the opportunity to discuss the issue of finding the missing citizens of South Ossetia. He has stressed that, despite the fact that some success has been achieved in the process of clarifying the fate and whereabouts of the missing, a large number of unresolved cases remain.
“I believe that the first factor in the work in this direction is to increase efforts to clarify the fate of the missing. And I believe that the contribution of the South Ossetian participants to cooperation within the framework of the coordination mechanism is very important. We are witnessing a turning point in our common work, and we need to jointly find new methods and solutions. We had meetings in Tbilisi and Sukhum, and now we are here to define a new way forward.
As you know, one of the recommendations that we presented to you was that the local authorities should designate a delegated representative at the highest level so that they could work with me on the results of the process. My task is to work with these designated representatives. And we hope that this approach will lead to greater engagement and increased accountability. The ICRC cannot impose ready-made models of work and be a permanent leader in this process. Change implies the leadership of the participants in the process so that they are the driving force that could bring results,” said the ICRC representative.
In connection with the above, Anatoly Bibilov has stated that South Ossetia is responsible for its work. At the same time, the President does not see any changes in the solution of this problem on the part of the Georgian leadership.
“We must understand that in no case can neither the frequency of meetings, nor the frequency of discussion be considered effective if there are no results. Once again, I can note that the inaction of the Georgian side is often associated with the transition of some issues to the political plane. This cannot contribute to the solution, in particular, of this problem. I would like to stress once again that we do not see any changes in the solution of this problem on the part of the Georgian leadership. As for your appointment directly, we still hope that this work will reach a new level, we will see the effectiveness of the ICRC's mediation and changes in Georgia's attitude to this problem,” Anatoly Bibilov said.
He has stressed that the issue of finding missing South Ossetian citizens is raised every time at the Geneva international discussions on security and stability in Transcaucasia, but there are no any results.
“The attitude of our partners to this problem is very alarming. And I would like to emphasize once again that it is a matter of disappointment that we have not returned a single person to South Ossetia so far,” the head of state said.
