Press release of delegation of the Republic of South Ossetia at the Geneva international discussions about the sixteenth meeting within the frames of the international discussions on safety and stability in Transcaucasia
On May, 7, 2011 the sixteenth round of the Geneva international discussions on safety and stability in Transcaucasia has come to the end. Delegations of the Republic of South Ossetia, the Republic of Abkhazia and Georgia, the Russian Federation, the USA and also representatives of the EU, the United Nations and the OSCE have taken part in the work of the meeting. The delegation of the Republic of South Ossetia was headed by the Plenipotentiary of the President of the RSO Boris Chochiev. The work was being carried out by two groups. The group on safety has exchanged opinions on current situation at the places recognized as the tense ones. The delegation of South Ossetia has paid attention to the facts of deliberate infringement of the border and unwillingness of the Georgian authorities to cooperate in definition of the line of passage on the border.
It has been noticed that many cases of infringement of the frontier of South Ossetia by the Georgian side have been fixed. The results of the three last meetings taken place within the frames of Mechanisms on prevention and reaction to incidents in the course of which some steps for resolving the borderline incidents were made, have been estimated positively .As well as at the previous meetings, the South-Ossetian delegation has paid special attention to necessity of more active advancement for working out the legally obliging document consolidating the refusal of applying force by Georgia against South Ossetia. While the South-Ossetian, the Abkhazian and the Russian participants of the Geneva discussions during the last three years have been demanding to accelerate the work on the project of legally obliging document on non-use of force against the Republic of South Ossetia and the Republic of Abkhazia, the Georgian side with support of some participants commits sabotages this process and artificially ignores the subject. At the meeting there was an attempt of the Georgian delegation to change the points of guaranties of safety on the Georgian-Russian relations At the session of the working group on humanitarian questions the delegation of South Ossetia has made a statement about the course of investigation concerning the missing citizens of South Ossetia. The representatives of South Ossetia, having specified that the citizens of South Ossetia registered as the missing ones were captured by the Georgian force structures; and they have demanded to renew the work of the international experts group to influence on the Georgian side for clarifying the fate of the South-Ossetian citizens who have been missing during the period after the August war in 2008.The South-Ossetian participants have emphasized that the authorities of Georgia put obstacles on the way of returning the refugees in Leningorskiy region. During the meeting the positions of South-Ossetia and Abkhazia concerning the draught resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations spread by Georgia about the status of refugees and internally displaced persons from Abkhazia and South Ossetia, have been also expressed. In the statement of delegations of South Ossetia and Abkhazia it has been noticed that the project has not anything in common with aspiration to find the decision of the difficult humanitarian questions. Politicization of the problem of refugees by Georgia substantially deprives of sense the work in this direction within the frames of the Geneva discussions. If Georgia prefers to conduct the discussion of the refugee issues and internally displaced persons in such authoritative international body as the General Assembly of the United Nations, South Ossetia and Abkhazia will send their authoritative representatives to the UN for discussing the relevant issues and also for expressing their vision of the refugee problem. A range of complex questions connected with water supply, irrigation, reconstruction of hydraulic engineering constructions and gas supply have been also discussed in the course of the meeting. It has been noticed that Georgia has actually blocked renewal of gas supply in Leningorskiy region. The following round of the Geneva discussions is planned to be held on 6-7 October, 2011.
