Head of EUMM: Dvani Meeting Held in ‘Positive Atmosphere’

The last two weeks have passed “much calmer” on the ground at the South Ossetian administrative boundary line “than was visible from statements to the media,” Hansjörg Haber, head of the EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM) said in a statement on August 14.

He said that third meeting in series of incident prevention and response mechanism (IPRM), facilitated by EUMM, between the South Ossetian, Georgian and Russian sides in presence of OSCE representatives on August 14 in the village of Dvani took place in “a very positive atmosphere.”

“All participants were very constructive, without of course renouncing their prescribed positions,” Haber said.

He said that number of incidents that took place recently, as well as cases of alleged detention and kidnapping across the administrative border and few cases where shepherds and farmers have been detained were discussed. There have been reports that Georgian shepherds were briefly detained by the South Ossetian militias for allegedly crossing the border line.

“There was a common spirit to treat these particular cases pragmatically; not to detain these people but to turn them back. I hope this will materialise in the weeks to come,” Haber said.

“We can of course do more to reduce the nightly reports of shootings but the common view was that there were no major incidents which were intended to escalate the situation,” he added.

The sides agreed to hold next meeting in frames of IPRM on September 3, according to EUMM.

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