MP Claims Demilitarization Process Suspended in South Ossetia

MP Guram Vakhtangashvili, who was elected in South Ossetia?s Didi Liakhvi provincial constituency, said on November 25 that the demilitarization process has been suspended in the South Ossetian conflict zone.

?Despite the achieved agreement [on demilitarization of the South Ossetian conflict zone], the South Ossetian side has really done nothing to pull out its extra troops. Actually, the demilitarization process has been suspended,? MP Guram Vakhtangashvili told Civil Georgia on November 26.

He described the current situation in the region as calm. ?No shelling has been reported in the conflict zone for the past two days.?

At the meeting of the Joint Control Commission (JCC) in Vladikavkaz on November 20, the sides decided that demilitarization of the South Ossetian conflict zone will be carried out in three stages and end before November 28.

Demilitarization should be launched by dismantling military fortifications in the conflict zone; withdrawal of armored vehicles and heavy weaponry from the conflict zone should be the second step and eventually the process should grow into disarmament of the local, both Georgians and Ossetians, population in the conflict zone.

The agreement on demilitarization of the South Ossetian conflict zone was signed by Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania and South Ossetian de facto President Eduard Kokoev on November 5 in Sochi.