Georgian Negotiator Ignores JCC Meeting with Kokoity

Officials in breakaway South Ossetia said an informal meeting of the Joint Control Commission (JCC) ?yielded no constructive results? because of the Georgian negotiator?s insistance that the current negotiating format be changed.

Georgian State Minister for Conflict Resolution Issues Merab Antadze, who traveled to Tskhinvali on December 27 for the informal JCC session, refused to participate in a meeting between South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity and the JCC co-chairmen.

Antadze said earlier on December 27 that he was ready to meet with Kokoity separately, but not in the frames of the JCC.

The South Ossetian Press and Information Committee reported, quoting Kokoity, that there would be no separate talks with Antadze, as the latter does not represent a high enough ?level enabling him to meet with the South Ossetian President.?

?I can meet with, and I propose a meeting with, Georgian President Saakashvili,? he added.

Kokoity also said while speaking with reporters that he has information according to which Peter Semneby, EU Special Representative to South Caucasus, intends to meet with Dimitri Sanakoev, the Tbilisi-backed self-imposed president of breakaway South Ossetia.

?If this meeting takes place it will be a demonstration of disrespect towards the South Ossetian people? It is his [the EU envoy?s] right to meet with that person [Sanakoev]. But in this case he will be barred from entering the territory of South Ossetia,? the South Ossetian Press and Information Committee quoted Kokoity as saying.