Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Discusses Caucasus Security With EU, UN, OSCE Officials

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko discussed the situation on the border of South Ossetia and Georgia with EU, UN and OSCE representatives during consultations in Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th September, 2019) Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko discussed the situation on the border of South Ossetia and Georgia with EU, UN and OSCE representatives during consultations in Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

The meetings were attended by the co-chairs of the International Geneva Discussions on Security and Stability in the Caucasus, EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia Toivo Klaar, UN Representative Cihan Sultanoglu and Special Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Rudolf Michalka. The meeting participants arrived in Russia to prepare for the next round of discussions scheduled for October.

"The main topic of the consultations was the discussion of the situation on the border of the Republic of South Ossetia with Georgia. The Russian side emphasized the importance of a speedy de-escalation along the border strip near the village of Tsnelis through the search for compromise solutions via dialogue and refraining from taking unilateral actions," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Representatives of the EU, OSCE and UN also informed the Russian side about the results of their trip to Sukhum, Tbilisi and Tskhinval.

In late August, South Ossetia said that Georgian police had established a checkpoint on the republic's territory near the village of Tsnelis in the Znaursky district.

The authorities of South Ossetia demanded that Georgia remove the police post by August 30, otherwise they promised to take "legal means to protect the population from emerging threats," but Georgia continued to equip the checkpoint.

Later, the South Ossetian border guards occupied a height above the Georgian police checkpoint and began to equip their posts as part of a special humanitarian operation to thwart Georgian attempts to establish control over part of South Ossetian territory. The situation is being discussed at technical meetings in the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM) format with the participation of OSCE, EU and Russian officials, but there have yet to be any results.

The Geneva discussions on security and stability in the Caucasus began after the events of August 2008, when Georgia had launched an attack on South Ossetia. Representatives of Russia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Georgia, the United States, as well as observers from the United Nations, the European Union and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe are taking part in the negotiations.