Tskhinvali Rejects JCC in Tbilisi
South Ossetia will not participate in a meeting of the quadripartite Joint Control Commission (JCC) in Tbilisi. Security concerns were cited.
Georgian State Minister for Conflict Resolution Issues Merab Antadze had earlier offered to host the JCC meeting in Tbilisi.
A statement, posted on the South Ossetian Press and Information Committee?s website, however, rejected the offer. ?The South Ossetian delegation can not accept the invitation,” it said, “because of a threat to the security of [delegates].?
The JCC is a negotiating body, which administers the ceasefire in the conflict zone.
It has negotiators from the Georgian, South Ossetian, Russian and North Ossetian sides. Tbilisi has consistently complained that the arrangement is ?outdated? and ?unfair,? saying it is dominated by Russia. Instead, Tbilisi wants the European Union (EU) to become actively involved in the peace process, seeing it as a possible counterweight to perceived Russian dominance.
The EU itself has reacted cautiously to the proposal. Its special representative to the South Caucasus, Peter Semneby, said last month that, although a change in the negotiating format is not currently the focus of discussions, the creation of a new ?political body? to work alongside the existing JCC could be helpful.
?We do not really have a format that has political weight to bring conflict resolution,” he said. “The JCC is doing a lot of work, but that body has been designed to manage the ceasefire and that is a limitation.?
This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)
