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| Tbilisi and Tskhinvali accuse each other of having extra, non-peacekeeping troops in the conflict zone. Photo: Press and Information Committee of South Ossetia |
“Disarmament of the conflict zone will be one of the main topics of the meeting,” Zurab Zhvania told Civil Georgia on October 21. Both Tskhinvali and Tbilisi accuse each other of having extra, non-peacekeeping troops in the conflict zone.
However, earlier Zurab Zhvania said that together with the demilitarization, the Georgian side will push the issue of the political status of the breakaway region in at the top-level talks. But the South Ossetian side keeps its uncompromising stance and insists that South Ossetia’s status was determined as an independent state a decade ago and can not be the subject of discussion.
Georgian State Minister for Conflict Resolution Issues Goga Khaindrava, who represents the Georgian side in the JCC, which also involves the Russian, South Ossetian and North Ossetian representatives, said on October 20 that the top-level meeting will take place in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi presumably on November 5-6. “Not later than November 10,” he added.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said on October 20, that the talks over the resolution of the South Ossetian conflict can not last forever and called for immediate launch of talks over the political status of the breakaway region.
“The negotiating process can not drag on forever and it is not necessary to go to some European cities, or Sochi to meet the South Ossetian representatives. I myself can go to Tskhinvali [capital of South Ossetia], which is just a 90-minute ride away from Tbilisi,” Mikheil Saakashvili said at a news briefing on October 20.
The JCC session in the Russian embassy also focused the discussion of the recently deteriorated security situation in the conflict zone. All the sides expressed concern over the increased cases of attacks against the joint – Georgia, Russian and Ossetian peacekeeping forces. A total of two Ossetian peacekeepers were killed and another six servicemen, including Ossetians, Russian and Georgians, have been wounded over the past couple of weeks in the conflict zone.
“The JCC agreed to set up joint investigative groups which will examine each case of attacks against the peacekeepers, as well as will examine cases of shootouts in the conflict zone,” Aleksandre Kiknadze, Commander of the Georgian peacekeeping battalion, who attended the talks, told Civil Georgia on October 21.
The ethnic Georgian population of the Didi Liakhvi gorge in breakaway South Ossetia held a protest rally on October 19 and blocked the road connecting the capital of the unrecognized republic, Tskhinvali, and Java, town in northern South Ossetia. The Georgian population protested against, as they say, the “everyday shelling of Georgian villages.”
Georgian television reported quoting one of the Georgian residents of the Didi Liakhvi gorge as saying that “shots are [regularly] fired from the positions controlled by the South Ossetian side.” But the latter accuses the Georgian side of opening fire.
In a statement issued on October 21, the Press and Information Committee of the self-proclaimed South Ossetian Republic accused Georgia of concentrating unauthorized, non-peacekeeping troops in the village of Kvemo Akhalsopeli. “These kinds of moves make us think that Tbilisi still considers the possibility of a forceful resolution of the conflict,” the statement reads.
