According to reports, after Russian First Deputy Foreign Minster Valeri Loshchinin’s visit to Tskhinvali and talks with de facto South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoev on June 24, the leadership in Georgia’s breakaway South Ossetian province agreed to resume talks with the Georgian side.
It is anticipated that the talks will be conducted by the Joint Control Commission (JCC) and will be held in the Russian capital of Moscow on July 1, or on July 2. The JCC is a quadripartite body involving Georgian, South Ossetian, Russian sides, as well as Russia’s North Ossetia Republic.
After his talks in Tskhinvali, Loshchinin left for Tbilisi on June 25 and met with Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili in order to discuss the situation in South Ossetia.
Salome Zourabichvili told reporters after the talks that the Georgian side pushed the issue of setting up a joint checkpoint at the Roki pass, linking Russia’s North Ossetian Republic with Georgia’s breakaway South Ossetian region.
“With to this checkpoint we will be able to prevent smuggling,” the Georgian Foreign Minister told reporters.
The Georgian government has recently alleged that around 160-170 trucks loaded with weapons entered into the breakaway South Ossetia from Russia, via Roki pass.
Salome Zourabichvili said that the Russian side made no immediate response to Tbilisi’s proposal over setting up this joint checkpoint.
Valerie Loshchinin told reporters after the talks with Salome Zourabichvili that the political settlement of the South Ossetian conflict should be “carried out within the framework of the Joint Control Commission.”
In 2002, Russia’s First Deputy Foreign Minister, Valeri Loshchinin, was appointed by Russian president Vladimir Putin as his personal envoy for the resolution of the Abkhazia conflict. Since then, Loshchinin has been actively engaged in Abkhazia-related talks with the Georgian side. However, it seems that the Russian First Deputy Foreign Minister will also be in charge of South Ossetian issues.
On the eve of the Tskhinvali talks, Loshchinin traveled to the capital of Russia’s North Ossetian Republic, Vladikavkaz, and held talks with Alexandre Dzasokhov, the President of North Ossetia. Russian media sources reported that the situation in the neighboring province of South Ossetian was also discussed.
Meanwhile, the Georgian President’s administration reported that Mikheil Saakashvili, who convened a special session of the National Security Council to discuss South Ossetia late on June 24, will be visiting Moscow on July 2-4. It is expected, that South Ossetia will be one of the top issues discussed during these talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The latest talks between the Georgian and South Ossetian sides, through the JCC, were held in Tskhinvali on June 2 and which were hailed by the both sides, as well as by Russia, as progress. Both sides agreed to continue these negotiations in conjunction with JCC on a regular basis. But since that time, talks have been postponed for several times.
Relations between Tbilisi and Tskhinvali since June 2 have been strained by mutual accusations over the “deliberate fueling of tensions in the region.”
Tskhinvali was irritated by Tbilisi’s initiatives to deliver aid, described by the Georgian side as a humanitarian assistance and consisting mainly of agricultural fertilizers, to South Ossetian villages. Tskhinvali also keeps up its demands that Tbilisi pull out its additional units of the internal troops from the conflict zone, dispatched there in late May under the pretext of fighting smuggling.
Maneuvers by South Ossetian militia groups on June 22 have, in turn, irritated Tbilisi officials and have led to the further flaring up of tensions. A bullet allegedly fired from a training ground during exercises slightly wounded a 70-year-old ethnic Georgian woman who resides in the breakaway region.
The Georgian Interior Minister, Irakli Okruashvili, issued an ultimatum and demanded the Tskhinvali authorities to arrest and extradite those responsible for the incident. However, on June 24, de facto South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoev condemned this “language of ultimatum” and called for Tbilisi to resolve the South Ossetian conflict with peaceful means.
Meanwhile, Georgian Deputy Interior Minister Gia Getsadze announced that Georgian law enforcers, after a limited security operation in South Ossetia’s mountainous district of Java, have detained three Russian citizens suspected of espionage. He said that the detainees are ethnic Ossetians who entered into Georgia from Russia’s North Ossetian Republic.
