EU Monitors will be Deployed Outside S.Ossetia ? Lavrov

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that, in accordance with the agreement signed between the French and Russian presidents, EU monitors would be deployed outside, not inside, South Ossetia.

“They will be stationed around South Ossetia in order to prevent a reoccurrence of a use of force by Tbilisi,” Interfax news agency quoted Lavrov as saying at a news conference on September 9.

He also said that the agreement stipulated that the OSCE, which had observers inside South Ossetia prior to hostilities, would continue its monitoring mission in accordance with the mandate it had before the conflict. That means that the OSCE observers will be able to return to Tskhinvali and monitor the situation within a 15-km radius around the breakaway South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali.

The same is envisaged in respect of UN observers in Abkhazia, Lavrov said.

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