Tskhinvali de-facto authorities accuse Tbilisi of new provocation

By Natalia Kochiashvili

Thursday, September 5

Georgian State Security Agency says the information on the disposition of police checkpoint in Perevi was spread in May 2018.

Sinagur is located on the so-called South Ossetian border, close to village Perevi, controlled by the central government

Speaker of the de facto parliament of the Tskhinvali region, occupied by Russia, Alan Tadtaev, together with lawmakers, has left for the village of Sinaguri, “where information is spread about another provocation by the Georgian side” - the de-facto state news agency Res reports.

The discourse regards the construction of a Georgian police checkpoint near the village of Perevi in Sachkhere municipality, which borders the occupied Tskhinvali region, in particular, Sinagur.

The departure of de facto parliament members in the synagogue was preceded by a statement by the de facto security committee that the Georgian side was still trying to provoke tensions, and with this objective, on August 25 continued to set up police facilities near Perevi. According to the de-facto security committee announcement, capital works and arrangement of concrete pavement are planned on the road connecting the police checkpoint and the settlement in Perevi.

At the end of August, the situation at the occupation line escalated after a Georgian police checkpoint was located near the village of Chorchana in Khashuri municipality, with the concentration of occupation forces near the occupied border of the village of Tsneli. The de facto authorities demanded that the checkpoint be removed.

It’s noteworthy, that to ease the situation, two technical meetings were held within the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM), with the mediation of the OSCE and the EU not reaching a specific agreement. On August 29, at the 95th meeting of the IPRM in Ergneti, representatives of the occupation regime demanded the removal of a police checkpoint in the form of an ultimatum, out of 10 topics that were prepared beforehand, only one was discussed at the meeting, partially. On August 30, with the participation of representatives of the OSCE and the European Union, the parties held a technical meeting with Tsneleli. No agreement was reached at this meeting either.

The Georgian authorities say Chorchana is a territory controlled by them, with the standard police checkpoint set up solely for security purposes and they do not intend to move it.

According to the Georgian State Security Service, preparatory work is being carried out in the village of Perevi, Sachkhere municipality, to move the existing police checkpoint by several hundred meters.

“This is because crossing the occupation line on this section is only for pedestrians and reducing the walking distance by several hundred meters will be an essential relief for them,” says Security Service.

According to them, all participants of the IPRM were informed about the work in May 2018 and since then, this topic has been discussed several times in the framework of the IPRM format.