106th IPRM Meeting Held in Ergneti

The 106th Incident Prevention and Response Mechanisms (IPRM) meeting took place today in Ergneti village near the occupation line of Tskhinvali Region/South Ossetia.

The EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM), co-facilitating the meeting together with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), said the discussions focused on the arbitrary detention cases, “borderization” activities along the dividing line, the situation in the Chorchana-Tsnelisi area and the closure of crossing points.

The co-facilitators – Head of EUMM Georgia, Marek Szczygieł and Viorel Moşanu, Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for the South Caucasus – particularly highlighted the more than 2.5-year-long closure of Odzisi crossing point, which connects Tskhinvali-controlled ethnic Georgian majority Akhalgori district to the rest of Georgia.

Also, Ambassador Szczygieł called for a humanitarian approach to be applied during the upcoming Orthodox Easter period, asking for paying attention to the rights of locals, including their access to religious sites and graveyards.

The State Security Service of Georgia said that during the meeting Tbilisi reiterated the call for the unconditional release of Georgian citizens arbitrarily detained by the Russian occupying forces.

Irakli Antadze of the SSG told reporters after the meeting that one of the detainees, Valeri Kaniashvili, will be released in the coming days as his detention term draws to an end.

Moscow-backed Tskhinvali representative Igor Kochiev said key topics on the S. Ossetian side’s agenda were again “violations of the state border” by Georgian citizens and the Georgian police post in the Chorchana-Tsnelisi area.

Kochiev further claimed that Tbilisi categorically refuses to discuss the “delimitation-demarcation” of the occupying line, Tskhinvali-based RES news agency reported.  

As for the Chorchana-Tsnelisi issue, Kochiev said Tskhinvali “does not see any other solution” than the central Georgian Government taking down the police post and law enforcers withdrawing from the area. 

The next IPRM meeting is slated for June 7, 2022. 

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