The release of the three Georgian citizens and almost completed mission of the Council of Europe (CoE) Commissioner for Human Rights Tomas Hammarberg on finding out the fate of the missing South Ossetians, gives the hope for resumption of the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM), stated the EU Envoy Pierre Morel while visiting Tskhinval with the delegation of the Geneva discussions' Co-Chairs.
The delegation arrived in South Ossetia to conduct preparatory consultations for the forthcoming 11th round of Geneva discussions to take place 7-8 June 2010. Ambassador Morel underlined that the resumption of the IPRM was an important component of the Co-Chair's work, since the Mechanism was created within the frames of Geneva discussions.
As to the non-use of force agreement, according to Morel, it is quite a difficult moment, but the Co-Chairs will continue their efforts in this direction.
"It is the key component of our actions", underlined the EU Envoy. As the UN C-Chair Antti Turunen underlined, principle issues are difficult to resolve, but it is obvious, there are constructive approaches to the solution. "Further steps to build confidence are possible. We heard today on the possibility to resume the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism. This sets good grounds for discussions in Geneva", said Turunen.
The OSCE Chairman-in-Office's Special Representative Bolat Nurgaliev agreed on the positive assessment of the meetings in Tskhinval given by his colleagues. "We have a feeling that we can move forward, new elements were identified, which we, as the Co-Chairs, will try to take the advantage of, in order to fulfill our main mission – to be objective mediators to enable the sides to the conflict to come closer in their positions. I believe that good grounds are set for our fruitful work during the forthcoming 11th round of discussions", stated Nurgaliev.
