Tbilisi Wants Checkpoint at Border between North and South Ossetia

Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili told reporters after the talks with visiting Russian First Deputy Foreign Minister Valeri Loshchinin that the South Ossetia was one of the main issues discussed during the meeting.

She said that the Georgian side pushed the issue of setting up a joint checkpoint at the Roki pass, linking Russia’s North Ossetian Republic with Georgia’s breakaway South Ossetian region.

“Due to this checkpoint we will be able to prevent smuggling,” the Georgian Foreign Minister told reporters.

Georgian government has recently alleged that dozens of trucks loaded with weapons entered into the breakaway South Ossetia through Roki pass.

Salome Zourabichvili said that the Russian side made no immediate response to Tbilisi’s proposal over the joint checkpoint.

“We discussed the relations between the two countries [Georgia and Russia]. We also discussed the recent developments in [breakaway] South Ossetia, as well as the conditions for political settlement of the conflict in frames of Joint Control Commission,” Valerie Loshchinin told reporters after the talks with Salome Zourabichvili.