Georgia to Push for Revision of S.Ossetia Agreement at Talks

Merab Antadze, the Georgian State Minister for Conflict Resolution Issues, said on August 8 that Tbilisi plans to officially push for the revision of the decade-long agreement with Russia that serves as the legal basis for the current Russian-led peacekeeping and negotiation arrangements for the South Ossetian conflict.

?At the upcoming session of the Joint Control Commission the Georgian side plans to put forth a revision of the 1992 Dagomis agreement,? Merab Antadze, the Georgian State Minister for Conflict Resolution Issues, told reporters on August 8.

The Sochi agreement, which is also known as Dagomis agreement, was signed by then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin and then-Head of the Georgian State Eduard Shevardnadze. A Joint Peacekeeping Force, consisting of Georgian, Ossetian, and Russian battalions, was set up as a result of this agreement.

The quadripartite Joint Control Commission (JCC), with negotiators from the Georgian, South Ossetian, Russian, and Russia?s North Ossetian sides, was also established by the Sochi agreement to oversee the cease-fire in the conflict zone.

The Georgian Parliament passed a resolution on July 18 instructing the government to launch relevant procedures in order to immediately suspend, as the document reads, ?the so-called peacekeeping operations? in breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

A similar resolution was passed by Parliament in February that specifically addresses the situation in South Ossetia and instructs the government to revise the Sochi agreement.

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