Tbilisi, Tskhinvali Accuse Each Other of Opening Fire

The Georgian Interior Ministry said on December 1, that the South Ossetian militias opened “intensive fire” in direction of the Georgian villages located at the administrative border in the south-east from Tskhinvali late last night.

The fire was opened in direction of the villages of Mereti, Kveshi and Koshka, the Interior Ministry said. It also said that the Georgian police did not return fire.

Authorities in breakaway South Ossetia, however, have claimed that the Georgian side opened fire from the villages of Nikozi and Kveshi on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

Meanwhile, head of EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM), Hansjörg Haber, said in a statement on December 1, that the situation along the administrative boundary lines “is unpredictable, incidents are still occurring.”  

EUMM said in the statement that because of challenges that still remained along the administrative borderline, the mission has decided to relocate some of its field offices. In particular one of the moves involves moving mission’s field office from Poti in western Georgia to Khashuri in the Shida Kartli region. The move aims at increasing monitoring capabilities on the western part of the South Ossetian administrative borderline.

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