U.S. Official: Russia not in Full Compliance with Ceasefire
Daniel Fried, the U.S. assistant secretary of state, said on October 20 that the withdrawal of Russian forces from the areas adjacent to Abkhazia and South Ossetia was “a real progress,” but he added that the situation was “far from satisfactory.”
He said that the ceasefire plan negotiated by the French president envisaged the withdrawal of forces to pre-war positions.
“Russians have not done so, therefore they are not yet in compliance with the ceasefire,” he said at a news conference in Tbilisi. “They are in compliance with some of it [the ceasefire provisions], but not all of it.”
He said that this situation would not be resolved “very easily” and “very soon.” But in the meantime, he continued, it was important to get international observers inside South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
“We are worried about Akhalgori and the condition of other villages where we have reports of destruction and forcible removal of Georgian population, so we need international observers to go in there and find out what is happening,” the U.S. official said.
The U.S. diplomat visited Tbilisi, as well as some of the war-affected villages in the Shida Kartli region, on October 18-20. The visit came after the Geneva talks on October 15, where Fried represented the United States, and before the Brussels donors’ conference planned for October 22, where he left for from Tbilisi.
He said at the news conference that “basic security” in the villages close to the South Ossetian administrative border remained a problem as well. Fried added that while visiting the Georgian villages south of the South Ossetian administrative border he had met a farmer whose father, he said, had been “kidnapped by the South Ossetian gangs.”
Meanwhile, the authorities in breakaway South Ossetia claimed that at least 11 Ossetians were kidnapped in the past few days by the Georgian secret services from villages on the South Ossetian side of the administrative border.
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