Lavrov Meets S.Ossetian Leader

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with breakaway South Ossetia’s leader, Eduard Kokoity, in Moscow on July 11 – a day after he met with Abkhaz leader, Sergey Bagapsh.

“We hope that we will be able to avoid a military scenario developing,” Lavrov told Kokoity in televised remarks.

“We should create conditions, wherein the Georgian, Russian and Ossetian, as well as the Abkhazian people will be able to have good neighborly cooperation so as to develop those beautiful territories,” Lavrov said.

He reiterated the urgent need for a binding treaty on the non-use of force.

Lavrov hailed, what he called, South Ossetia’s “adherence to the political process” in particular towards the need to continue talks in the frames of the existing mechanism – the quadripartite Joint Control Commission (JCC). He also expressed hope that Tbilisi would “return to this sole existing mechanism.”

Kokoity told Lavrov that Tskhinvali deemed the JCC to be “the only” mechanism for talks.

Kokoity thanked Russia for its “rapid reaction” to the threat of a resumption of hostility, which, as he said, was real on July 8 in South Ossetia. Russia said on July 10 that it had sent military aircraft into Georgian airspace over South Ossetia to avert, as it put it, an expected incursion by Georgian forces into the region.

Kokoity also told Lavrov that Georgia’s NATO integration would “further escalate conflicts both in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.”