Progress in drafting the legal document obliging Georgia not to apply force against South Ossetia and Abkhazia, has not been reached at the 17th round of the Geneva discussions, being held on October, 3-4.
As informed by the head of the South Ossetian delegation, the Plenipotentiary of the President of the RSO on the post conflict settlement Boris Chochiev to the IA RES, Georgia is not ready to act as guarantor of non-use of force against both republics, using unconstructive policy of the countries, supporting it, in particular the USA, utterly opposing to signing of this document. «At the last session of the United Nations General Assembly the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov has voiced the new offer on the way out of this seeming impasse – he has called on the USA and the European Union together with the Russian Federation to act as the guarantor on fulfilling unilateral obligations which have been sounded by the heads of South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Georgia», - Chochiev has told. According to the Plenipotentiary, the Georgian delegation and the US Deputy State Secretary Phillip Gordon have strongly objected this offer, having declared that this point of question is unacceptable for them. «Then our delegation has suggested taking a time-out and suspending the activities of the Geneva discussions while in Georgia the adventurer Saakashvili is in power. It is senseless to wait while he will be ready to the document signing», - the Plenipotentiary has noted. The Abkhazian delegation, according to Chochiev, has supported the offer of the South-Ossetian side. «The Secretary of State of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Russia Grigory Karasin has addressed to the representatives of the USA and Georgia with the offer to consider, comprehend once again the offer of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia and make the right decision», - he has noted. Chochiev has also informed that the refugee problem was not discussed in the second group of the 17th round of the Geneva discussions. «Earlier the issue of returning the refugees not only of the 2004-2008 period, but also the refugees of 1989, was always at the core of the discussions. However this problem has been started discussing at the sessions of the United Nations General Assembly, where we are not invited to and where these issues are discussed behind our back. The problem of refugees has been farcified without any result at the Geneva discussions. Therefore we have laid down a condition: if we are not invited to the General Assembly sessions, we do not see any sense in discussing these questions at the Geneva discussions», - the head of the South-Ossetian delegation has emphasized. In conclusion, Chochiev has noted that the problem of the missing persons was also discussed at the meeting.
