Tbilisi is ready to hold top-level talks with the South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoev. The latter has expressed a readiness to meet with Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania in Russia?s Black Sea resort town of Sochi.
?The Georgian side?s official position is that we are ready to hold face-to-face, top-level talks with the South Ossetian side anywhere,? Nato Chikovani, spokeswoman for the Georgian Foreign Ministry, told Civil Georgia on September 20.
Following the visit of Eduard Kokoev to Moscow last week, the Russian Foreign Ministry articulated the South Ossetian position in an information note issued on September 18.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry agenda, the top-level meeting should include “additional guarantees for the strict enforcement of a cease-fire; the implementation of the decisions made by the Joint Control Commission (JCC) regarding the withdrawal of all illegal armed groups in the zone of conflict; other immediate steps for defusing the crisis situation; stabilization of the situation in the conflict zone and confidence-building among the sides.”
Holding of the top-level talks with the South Ossetian leader was proposed by Zurab Zhvania in late August; however, the Georgian side insisted on the discussion of South Ossetia?s political status should the talks indeed take place.