The issue of removing the illegal Georgian police post on the territory of South Ossetia near the village of Uista (Tsnelis) is raised by the South Ossetian party at each meeting of the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism format. This was reported to journalists by the head of the South Ossetian delegation, Deputy Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy for post-conflict settlement Yegor Kochiev.
According to him, on Tuesday the South Ossetian delegation paid special attention to the incidents taking place near the state border line with the participation of the Georgian police and Georgian security forces.
“The issue of the illegal post has been raised every time since its setting up and a solution to this problem is being sought. And every time South Ossetia offers different options for resolving the problem, but in any case, the first step to solve it is to withdraw the post from our territory,” the head of the South Ossetian delegation told reporters after the meeting.
Kochiev has clarified that all other issues discussed at the meetings of the IPRM are related to the line of the state border. The Deputy Plenipotentiary has added that since the last meeting, twelve people have violated the state border - citizens of Georgia.
“All of them were expelled from the Republic of South Ossetia without penalty. Four violators were subjected to administrative fines and also expelled from the territory of our Republic,” he said.
The 107th meeting of the IPRM has ended today, with the next scheduled for September 23rd. As noted by Egor Kochiev such a period is due to the fact that "there are many issues that need to be discussed and resolved in July and August of this year." He has explained that the parties agreed, if necessary, to discuss and resolve the issues through the "hot line".
As for holding meetings in a full-fledged pre-Covid format, as noted by the Deputy Plenipotentiary, this issue was not ignored by the participants of the dialogue.
“The South Ossetian party proposed to return the original, pre-Covid format of meetings, with the participation of all interested services. And we hope that in September we will meet in a more expanded format, and the coronavirus pandemic will no longer interfere with our plans,” Kochiev expressed hope.
Meetings in the IPRM format are held within the framework of the Geneva discussions on security in the Caucasus. The dialogue is attended by representatives of South Ossetia, Russia, Georgia, the European Union and the OSCE. But due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which swept all countries and made adjustments to the work of all spheres of life, it was decided to reduce the number of participants. This decision also affected the media.
