Roy Reeve: Permanent Council to Decide on an Increased Role for OSCE in South Ossetia

The head of the OSCE Mission in Georgia, Ambassador Roy Reeve, said on August 5 upon his return from breakaway South Ossetia that the OSCE Permanent Council would accept a final decision over OSCE’s expansion in Georgia at a session on August 6.

?We have discussed in [breakaway] South Ossetia the issue of OSCE?s increased participation in the South Ossetian conflict resolution. The OSCE Permanent Council has not accepted a final decision yet. During this period, it was closely following the recent developments in the Tskhinvali region. Now, the Council is ready to accept a decision over OSCE expansion,? Roy Reeve told Rustavi 2 television on August 5.

On July 29 Salome Zourabichvili, the Georgian Foreign Minister, pushed the issue of increasing OSCE’s involvement in the settlement of the South Ossetian conflict at a session of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna.

?The conflicting sides have expressed willingness to expand [the] OSCE mandate. Now, the most important thing is to maintain stability and withdraw extra weapons from the conflict area, since the threat of escalation of tension still persists,? Roy Reeve said upon his return from breakaway South Ossetia.

He reiterated the readiness of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy, to invite the parties to Sofia, Bulgaria for a meeting at a high political level to discuss measures to achieve the resolution of the conflict.