Tbilisi Criticizes PACE Monitor for ‘Bias’

Georgia has strongly condemned monitor from Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE), David Wilshire of UK, for having a meeting with South Ossetian official in an embassy of the breakaway region in Moscow.

The Georgian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on April 22, the venue of the meeting indicated on Mr. Wilshire’s “predetermined” and “biased” position towards the issue he was in charge of.

David Wilshire, a co-rapporteurs from PACE’s monitoring committee on honouring obligations by the Council of Europe member states, was in Moscow to hold talks with the Russian officials in the run up to discussions about consequences of the August, 2008 war in PACE next week.

Authorities in breakaway South Ossetia said that Wilshire met with Tskhinvali’s special envoy for post-conflict resolution, Boris Chochiev, in the region’s embassy in Moscow on April 20.

“Georgia fully respects the liberty of a parliamentarian; however Mr. Wilshire, the member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe was acting in his capacity of the Assembly’s co-rapporteur, hence representing the whole organization. This is the first instance when an official representative of the international organization holds the meeting in the premises of the "Embassy" of the proxy regimes,” the Georgian Foreign Ministry said in the statement.

“This act comes in direct contravention to the main principles of international law, i.e. the principles of territorial integrity and sovereignty and inter alia undermines the Statute of the Council of Europe, as well as each and every Parliamentary Assembly’s resolution, the implementation of which the Assembly’s Monitoring Committee was tasked to assess,” the statement reads. “Furthermore, it neglects the position of the Council of Europe and its’ member states who condemned the recognition by Russia of the Georgian regions: Abkhazia and Tskhinvali Region/South Ossetia and called the Russian Federation to withdraw its illegal, unilateral recognition.”

“Moreover, it attests that Mr. Wilshire has a predetermined, biased position towards the issues concerning the implementation of the Parliamentary Assembly’s resolutions on the consequences of the Russia-Georgia war,” the Georgian Foreign Ministry said.

Davit Jalagania, Georgia’s deputy foreign minister, med with Tbilisi-based diplomats from CoE-member states, to convey Tbilisi’s concerns about the matter, the Georgian Foreign Ministry said.

Discussions on consequences of the August war are scheduled at PACE session on April 28. Heidi Tagliavini, who chaired EU-funded Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia (IIFFMCG), which produced its report in September, 2009, will also address the session on the same day.

PACE has passed three resolutions on consequences of the August war. The recent one in last September was calling on Russia to fulfill its obligations, imposed upon it by PACE’s January, 2009 and October, 2008 resolutions, before the end of 2009.

Wilshire, accompanied by another co-rapporteur on the matter Hungarian MP Mátyás Eörsi, visited Tbilisi and Sokhumi in mid-April.

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