Georgian PM Offers to Talk with South Ossetian Leader

Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania reiterated his readiness to negotiate with South Ossetian de facto President Eduard Kokoev, but added, however, that Georgian troops will not give up their current positions in the breakaway region.

He said that the recent attacks by the South Ossetian militias and mercenaries on the Georgian troops? positions aim at taking over by-pass roads which link the Georgian villages in the Didi Liakhvi gorge with the Georgian controlled territories.

The road to Didi Liakhvi gorge lies within the separatist-controlled South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali while the roads by-passing Tskhinvali are controlled by the Georgian troops, enabling the Georgian side to have a link with the villages North of Tskinvali populated by ethnic Georgians.

?These roads are of vital importance. These roads are the humanitarian corridor to deliver food to the Georgian villages of Didi Liakhvi gorge and we will not give up these roads,? Zurab Zhvania said.

He also said that the South Ossetian side proposed to hold a session of the Joint Control Commission (JCC), a quadripartite body involving the Georgian, South Ossetian, Russia and North Ossetian sides; Zhvania expressed skepticism, however, over the JCC, saying that it will be a ?waste of time? and offered instead to have high level talks with the South Ossetian leader directly.