South Ossetia Talks Stalled, as Tbilisi Rejects Moscow’s Controversial Proposal

Russia’s surprise proposal to hold quadripartite talks with participation of Georgian and Russian Presidents, as well as leaders of Russia’s North Ossetian Republic and breakaway South Ossetia was not only rejected but also strongly condemned by the Georgian side at the session of the Joint Control Commission (JCC) held in Ljubljana on November 16.

Two-day talks in frames of the quadripartite JCC, involving Georgian, Russian, South Ossetian and Russia’s North Ossetian negotiators was held in the Slovenian capital under the invitation of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel.

“These were the longest and the most fruitless talks,” Giorgi Khaindrava, the Georgian State Minister for Conflict Resolution Issues, who represents the Georgian side in the JCC, told reporters.

Talks, which were marred by war of words and sparring between Georgian State Minister for Conflict Resolution Giorgi Khaindrava and South Ossetian Special Affairs Minister Boris Chochiev, ended overnight on November 16-17. The Georgian side’s protests during the talks were triggered after the Russian and South Ossetian sides’ insisted to include in a final protocol of the meeting provision on an urgent need to hold quadripartite talks between Mikheil Saakashvili and Vladimir Putin, with the participation of leaders of breakaway South Ossetia and North Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity and Teimuraz Mamsurov respectively in the Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Russia’s chief negotiator Valery Kenyaikin said that such a meeting would “give a new impulse to the negotiating process.”

The Georgian side’s rejection of this proposal was quite anticipated. Tbilisi desperately tries to change the current negotiating format, which is described by the Georgian officials as “three against one” meaning that the Georgian side has to face Russian, South Ossetian and North Ossetian negotiators in frames of the JCC. Hence, the proposal to hold top-level talks in a similar format was strongly condemned by the Georgian side.

“This is absolutely politically incorrect and inadmissible proposal,” Georgian State Minister Giorgi Khaindrava told reporters on November 17.
 
“We are not going to put equal sign between our President and Kokoity. If they [the Russian side] want to equal their President with Kokoity, then it is their problem, but we are not going to do so,” Parliamentary Chairperson Nino Burjanadze told reporters on November 17.

Tbilisi, instead, offers negotiations between Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli and South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity. During previous sessions of the JCC, the participating sides, including Moscow and Tskhinvali, have agreed for several times to hold this kind of talks, but this has never happened.

The South Ossetian side now states that Georgian PM can only meet with chairman of the breakaway region’s government Yuri Morozov.

President of breakaway South Ossetia Eduard Kokoity said in an interview with the Russian news agency RIA Novosti on November 17 that he will not hold talks with Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli, citing that the South Ossetian leader and Georgian PM are not “equal rank officials.”

“I think that Georgian-Ossetian talks over conflict resolution are only possible between officials with equal ranks and Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli does not have to meet with me, but with Premier of South Ossetia Yuri Morozov. We have already compromised once and I met with [late] Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania [last December] to demonstrate that we [the South Ossetian side] are ready for dialogue,” Eduard Kokoity said.

This standoff prompted the Georgian State Minister for Conflict Resolution Issues to reiterate Tbilisi’s position that the recent JCC session “proved once again that the format should be immediately changed.”

“Destructive position of both Russian and South Ossetian sides practically hampers us from achieving concrete results,” he added.

Georgia wants to involve OSCE, EU and the United States as full-pledged members of the negotiating process.

“The sides failed not only to make any new decisions [at the Ljubljana JCC session], but also to agree on implementation of the previous agreements. This confirms the necessity for changing the current format through the involvement of the U.S. and EU. The OSCE role in the conflict resolution process should also increase,” Georgian PM Zurab Nogaideli told reporters on November 18.