Head of EUMM mission holds meetings in Russia for the first time since 2011
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Tuesday, September 22
The European Monitoring Mission (EUMM) in Georgia has addressed the problems of Georgia’s occupied regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia (Tskhinvali) as well as the complications at the Administrative Boundary lines (ABL) with the de-facto regions during meetings in Russia, which is the major actor of the process.
For the first time since 2011, the Head of the EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia, Kestutis Jankauskas, visited Moscow on 15-16 September for meetings with the Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, Grigory Karasin, and the Chief of the Border Security Directorate of the Russian FSB Border Service, Nikolay Kozik.
According to the EUMM webpage, the main purpose of the visit to the Russian Federation was to maintain working contacts in Moscow and to address the concerns of all sides in order to maintain stability and to prevent the escalation of the situation on the ground.
“Both meetings were held in a friendly, constructive and professional atmosphere,” the EUMM said.
The mission informed that the security situation on the ground in Georgia, along the ABL with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, had been discussed in the framework of preparations for the next rounds of the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM) meeting in Georgia and the Geneva International Discussions.
“Issues of borderisation, freedom of movement, access of the local population to agricultural land as well as military exercises were raised and discussed, as were practical issues such as interaction in the field between security actors.
“The commitment of all sides to use the existing instruments such as the IPRM meetings and the Hotline was stressed in order to maintain stability and predictability on the ground,” the EUMM said.
