Concerning the results of the 33rd round of the Geneva International Discussions
Regular round of the Geneva International Discussions was held on October, 6-7, 2015. Official mission from South Ossetia, headed by Murat Dzhioev, the Plenipotentiary of the President of the Republic of South Ossetia on post-conflict settlement, missions from Abkhazia, Georgia, Russia, the USA as well as representatives of the EU, the UN and OSCE took part in negotiations.
In accordance with the tradition, the discussions were held in two working groups: on security and humanitarian issues.
According to Medvedev-Sarkozy's agreements the main attention in the working group on security was paid to the problem of non-use of force by Georgia against South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and security and stability maintaining in regions. South Ossetia delegation called once again for boosting work on legally binding bilateral agreement on non-use of force which would have firm international warranties. Expert work on the writing of a joint statement on commitment of all participants of the discussions to principle of non-use of force was continued. Taking into consideration the fact that they failed to come to terms at expert level, it was suggested to continue the discussion at working group level.
Detailed conversation on security and stability about South Ossetia-Georgian and Abkhazia-Georgian borders took place. The participants noted relative stability around South Ossetia-Georgian frontier. The statistics speaks about significant decrease in number of border violations in general and unintentional violations in particular. According to South Ossetia delegation it is related with border markers and forced entry-resistant constructions set along South Ossetia state line that are informing local population about the border.
At the same time the destabilizing provocative demarches organized by Georgian party near villages Orchosan and Tsinagar in July were pointed out. Within the demarches South Ossetia border was violated and border markers set up by the Ossetians were damaged intentionally. Due to these facts members of South Ossetia delegation delivered corresponding documentary evidences.
On behalf of the Republic Government South Ossetia delegation called once again Georgian side to get to development of a bilateral legal basis for the frontier delimitation and demarcation. That would help solving problems that depend on the fact that there are no agreements on the frontier.
As one of major conditions of maintaining stability and security around Ossetian-Georgian border the activity of IPRM was noted. Also the productivity of “the hot line” organized upon IPRM was marked.
Ossetian, Abkhazian and Russian representatives expressed concern about active steps made by Georgia in framework of integration into NATO. Special alarm was caused by NATO training and evaluation center creation on territory of the country, regular military trainings hold close to South Ossetia territory, plans of the block in further expansion of military presence in Georgia. As it was emphasized, such policy alongside with the persistent unwillingness of Georgian authorities to sign documents on non-use of force as well as persistent claims for territories of sovereign Republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia causes concern.
Detailed conversation on humanitarian issues among which the issue of the destiny of the missing people and South Ossetia citizens who had been illegally condemned in Georgia took an important place. South Ossetia delegation emphasized that progress in solving these problems could become an important step in establishing trust between the states and reminded once again of the proposal made by President Tibilov to consider the possibility of mutual jail release of the imprisoned South Ossetia and Georgia citizens. As an important step in this direction the participants took the fact that a Georgian citizen who had been serving a sentence in South Ossetia was pardoned by South Ossetia authorities in July.
Within discussion of the raised problem of South Ossetia missing citizens’ destiny members of South Ossetia delegation received assurances from international agents that a special independent international expert would join to the missing people investigation in short time.
Within the discussion on cultural heritage South Ossetia participants raised once again the problem of returning to the Republic the unique icon (the Okoni triptych) that had been stolen from South Ossetia museum and currently is in Georgia. Once again members of the delegation drew attention to the problem of preservation of those Ossetian historical-cultural monuments that are located on territory of Eastern Ossetia. This territory is currently under Georgian control and the Ossetians who were driven out are not allowed to go there.
As biased and tendentious steps were taken by South Ossetian and Abkhazian delegations Georgian attempts to present the two states as so called “closed areas” where human rights are “violated”. It was noted that these provocative political acts were made with purpose to misrepresent facts about the two states and to try to isolate them from the international community.
The problem of refugees wasn’t discussed within the round. It is expected that renewal of negotiations on this subject would become possible when Georgia gives up turning artificially the problem into a political issue.
Information session on international legal aspects of cultural heritage preservation was organized upon the 33rd round of the Discussions.
Upon the discussions the round was shortly summed up.
The next meeting in Geneva is scheduled for December, 2015.
October 8, 2015, Geneva