Tbilisi Denies S.Ossetia Reports on Shooting

Georgian Interior Ministry has strongly denied reports by breakaway South Ossetian authorities that two mortar rounds were fired from the Georgian village on Saturday morning.

The South Ossetian side claimed that fire was opened from the village of Ditsi, about four kilometers away from the breakaway region’s capital, Tskhinvali, in direction of the South Ossetian military observation post at 9:25am on August 1.

“No shooting took place at all,” Shota Utiashvili, head of Georgian Interior Ministry’s information and analytical department, told Civil.Ge.

A spokesman for the EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM) told Civil.Ge that the mission was aware of these reports and its monitors were in the process of verifying them.

Meanwhile, on July 31 officials from the Georgian and South Ossetian sides held an ad-hoc informal meeting, facilitated by the EU monitors, in the village of Ergneti to discuss the July 29 shooting incident. The Russian side was not present.

Tbilisi and Tskhinvali blamed each other of opening fire on July 29 and at a meeting on July 31 the sides “repeated their respective versions of events,” according to EUMM.

EUMM called on all sides to show restraint and refrain “from words and actions that could be considered provocative,” as the anniversary of the August war approaches.

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