Tbilisi, Moscow in Tskhinvali Gas Row
The Georgian Foreign Ministry said that Russia was pursuing its “campaign of demagogy in order to politicize” the issue of gas supplies to breakaway South Ossetia and to shift the blame to the Georgian side.
Georgia says that the Agara-Tskhinvali gas pipeline was seriously damaged during the August war, as a result gas supplies were cut off to the breakaway region. Tbilisi says that gas supplies can be resumed as soon as all damages to the gas pipeline are repaired through the mediation of OSCE.
On January 13 Greek diplomat Charalambos Christopoulos, a special representative of the Chairman-in-Office of OSCE on unresolved conflicts accompanied by an OSCE expert visited Tskhinvali to study the situation on the ground.
In a statement issued on January 15 the Russian Foreign Minister welcomed OSCE’s efforts in this direction, saying that OSCE experts have inspected a seven-kilometer section of the gas pipeline from the administrative border to Tskhinvali and identified no damages to the pipeline.
“We expect that OSCE experts working in the region will impartially assess the situation and exert influence on the Georgian authorities in order to stop this inhumane act,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
However, in a response statement issued on January 15, the Georgian Foreign Ministry said that the Russian side was “telling a lie” by saying that OSCE experts had identified no damages to the pipeline.
It said that according to the information provided by Greece, the OSCE chairmanship, the OSCE experts during the visit to Tskhinvali were able to check only the Tskhinvali gas distributing network. The Georgian Foreign Ministry said under the pretext of bad weather conditions, the breakaway South Ossetia’s secessionist authorities denied the OSCE experts to examine the whole length of the pipeline running through the occupied territory.
The Georgian side called on Moscow and Tskhinvali to provide OSCE experts with proper security guarantees thus allowing them to study thoroughly the section of the Agara-Tskhinvali gas pipeline.
“It should be underlined that Georgia attaches a great importance to the need of providing proper living conditions to its own citizens still residing in the region despite the fact that the Tskhinvali region is occupied by the Russian side and practically cleansed of the peaceful population,” the Georgian Foreign Ministry said in the English-language statement.
In a statement issued on December 31 the Georgian Foreign Ministry said that the gas pipeline was damaged near the village of Dirbi, which is located on the Georgian side of the administrative border of South Ossetia, “in the high risk zone.” And Georgian Energy Minister, Alexandre Khetaguri, said on January 9 that the Georgian workers were not able to repair damaged pipeline in the village of Dirbi on the immediate vicinity of the administrative border because of the security concerns.
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