The South Ossetian delegation has expressed hope that the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM) format will improve with the appointment of a new head of the EU monitoring mission in Georgia, Dimitrios Karabalis.
“The 111th meeting in the IPRM format was held with the participation of the new head of the mission. We hope that after he becomes aware of the matter, perhaps something will be changed,” said Yegor Kochiev, the head of the South Ossetian delegation in the IPRM format.
According to him, the membership of the IPRM is as limited as possible since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
Since during the dialogue in solving certain issues there is a need for assistants in the person of representatives of other services, we raised the issue of the composition of the delegations in pre-covid times,” he said.
Kochiev expressed hope for a positive solution to this issue, noting that there is understanding on the part of the Georgian party, too.
"The trend towards a constructive dialogue will continue, and I think that the chairmanship of Dimitrios Karabalis will not cause any serious changes in mutual understanding between the parties, between our delegation and the co-moderation of the European Union and the OSCE," he said.
Kochiev added that "it would be desirable that at the end of the meeting, journalists could take comments from the heads of the delegations."
“This issue was not raised in the format of a face-to-face meeting, but it was discussed on the sidelines. I once again asked the representative of the observer mission why there was no opportunity to talk with journalists from both parties after the meetings were over. So far, I have not received a concrete answer, but I intend to promote this issue further, since it is quite important in terms of bringing information to the listeners from the other side,” Kochiev said.
