Thursday, October 25, 2007, #204 (1471)

South Ossetian conflict talks fail to reach agreement
Tbilisi walks away from ‘fruitless’ JCC session saying it may be the last
By Nino Mumladze

Smiles, but no consensus (Photo by OSCE/David Khizanishvili

The two-day Joint Control Commission (JCC) session concluded Wednesday with nothing to show, as the four co-chairs failed to sign off on any agreements.

The South Ossetian conflict issues talks, the first full meeting of the quadripartite talks format in more than year, commenced with low expectations as the Georgian, Russian, South Ossetian and North Ossetian co-chairs gathered in the OSCE’s Tbilisi office on Tuesday.

After Wednesday’s closing meeting, State Minister for Conflict Resolution Davit Bakradze once again made it clear that Tbilisi has little interest in maintaining the JCC format.

“A body which fails to make serious decisions cannot remain the central format for conflict resolution,” he told journalists.
Bakradze implied that the other parties at the table were holding back the talks, referencing Tbilisi’s past assertion that the four-sided talks are intrinsically weighted towards Russia’s interests.
“The fruitless session… strengthens the legitimate questions we have in regard to the viability and effectiveness of this format,” Bakradze said.

The Georgian side would prefer “results-oriented projects,” he added, like the state commission on South Ossetian status definition or the Tbilisi-backed alternative South Ossetian administration.
In August, Georgian downgraded its representation on the JCC to the deputy State Minister for Conflict Resolution, Dimitri Manjavidze.
Manjavidze, speaking after the meeting, claimed the South Ossetian side prevented agreement on demilitarization issues and suggested this session could be the last.
“Because of this fact, we consider it senseless to continue working in the existing format,” he said.
Indeed, demilitarization of the conflict zone was top of the list for Tbilisi as its negotiators went into the session.
“The Georgian side’s top priority is the demilitarization of the region, disbanding and disarmament of the armed formations existing there and stopping the flow of illegal weapons in the region. This should be implemented through controlling the Roki Tunnel, including building a checkpoint at the village of Didi Gupta,” Bakradze stressed before the session, speaking with Rustavi 2.

Didi Gupta is in north of South Ossetia, and within 15 kilometers of the de facto secessionist capital of Tskhinvali. Georgia alleges that the Roki Tunnel, which links breakaway South Ossetia with Russia’s North Ossetia, is a conduit for illegal arms and drugs.

“The Russian and North Ossetian sides—and the OSCE—share our position placing an observation post in Didi Gupta,” Manjavidze announced on October 23. Only the South Ossetian side was preventing agreement, he said.

South Ossetia, meanwhile, blamed Georgia’s refusal to sign a non-violence pact as the reason for the talks’ failure.

“…former Georgian defense minister Irakli Okruashvili recently declared [Tbilisi had a plan] to use force in South Ossetia… Where is the guarantee that [current Defense Minister Davit] Kezerashvili has no similar plan?” asked Boris Chochiev, South Ossetia’s chief negotiator, after the session.

Chochiev said his side would like to see more JCC sessions in the future.

Tbilisi argues that a non-violence agreement was included in the original ceasefire agreement which froze hostilities in the early 90s. Getting rid of illegal arms in the region, Tbilisi says, must come before any other non-violence agreements are signed.

Manjavidze, the Georgian co-chair, also rejected two of Chochiev’s other demands: releasing ethnic Ossetians imprisoned by Georgian authorities and arranging a meeting between Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and the de facto South Ossetian president, Eduard Kokoity.

Georgia has tried repeatedly to bring more weight to what it sees as a Russian-dominated process, most recently requesting to include the head of the Tbilisi-backed alternative South Ossetian administration as a party in the talks.

The Russian side rejected the move, saying that Sanakoyev could only attend as a representative of the Georgian government.

Russian co-chair Yuri Popov was the only source of optimism as the session fell to a close—but also warned that Moscow would not be open to other negotiation formats.

“We were so close to an agreement,” he said. “I hope we’ll continue working in this format… If negotiations don’t continue in the existing format, it will be an alarming signal.”



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