Working meeting of the South Ossetian delegation at the GID, headed by Murat Dzhioev, the Plenipotentiary of the President of the Republic of South Ossetia on post-conflict settlement, and the Co-Chairs of the Discussions, representing the EU, the OSCE and the UN, took place in Tskhinval on May 23.

Security issues as well as humanitarian problems, included in the agenda of the coming 44th round of the GID, which is scheduled for June, were discussed during the meeting.

In the beginning of the meeting the participants summed up some results of the Geneva discussions and emphasized the effectiveness of the existing format in maintaining regional stability and security.

The South Ossetian participants called for the Co-Chairs to take seriously the necessity to update the agenda of the GID, and made their suggestions on how it should be generated.

It was emphasized that the problem of maintaining security as well as work on the legally binding document that would guarantee non-use of force by Georgia against the Republic of South Ossetia remains the key theme of the GID.

Due to absence of visible progress in this direction for a rather long period of time, the South Ossetian participants has once again draw attention of the Co-Chairs to the non-constructive position of Georgian side and its Western partners and, first of all, the USA, which became a point of contention in negotiations and adoption of the joint statement by all participants of the GID on commitment to the principle of non-use of force.

The participants noted the positive outcome of the IPRM work as well as the “hot line” organized in framework of the mechanism, which allows responding quickly to the arising problems and promotes solution of incidents, happening at the border.

Due to regular violations of the frontier between the Republic of South Ossetia and Georgia, the South Ossetian part has once again emphasized the importance of conducting joint work on delimitation and demarcation of the state border, which could prevent a set of problems, which are faced by citizens of cross-border areas on both sides of the frontier.

Serious attention has been drawn to humanitarian issues, first of all to the search of the South Ossetian missing citizens and the issue of cultural heritage.

The South Ossetian delegation reiterated its stand about the impossibility of discussing the problem of refugees until Georgia stops turning this problem into a political issue through bringing it at international stages beyond the framework of the Geneva discussions, where South Ossetia is not presented.

After the meeting the Co-Chairs of the Discussions answered questions of the South Ossetian media representatives.