OSCE to Extend Border Monitoring in Georgia

(Tbilisi, December 24, 2002. Civil Georgia) – Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will extend its monitoring mission at the Daghestani section of the Georgian-Russian border in 2003.

“The border monitoring mission extends and expands. Decision was taken in Vienna on December 19. OSCE will have overall 144 observes at the Russian-Georgian border,” Volker Jacoby, Spokesperson of the OSCE Mission in Georgia told Civil Georgia on December 24.

In December 1999, the OSCE began monitoring movements across the 82-kilometre border between Georgia and the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation.

At the request of the Georgian government, the OSCE agreed in December 2001, to extend monitoring to the 58-km Ingush section of the Georgian-Russian border.

The monitors are unarmed and the Georgian authorities gave assurances to provide security for the OSCE monitors.

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