104th Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism meeting held in Ergneti
Hosted under the co-facilitation of the Ambassador Marek Szczygiel, Head of the EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM), and Ambassador Viorel Mosanu, newly appointed Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for the South Caucasus, the meeting was the 104th as part of the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism framework, set up after the war. Photo: 1tv.ge.
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The 104th meeting of the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism took place yesterday in Ergneti, under the co-facilitation of the Ambassador Marek Szczygiel, Head of the EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM), and Ambassador Viorel Mosanu, newly appointed Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for the South Caucasus.
During the meeting participants focused on ongoing detention cases and discussed the impact that the protracted closure of crossing points and the COVID-19 pandemic continue to have on conflict-affected communities.
The parties also discussed the most recent security developments at the administrative boundary line (ABL), including instances of ‘borderisation’, as well as the situation in the Chorchana-Tsnelisi area.
- Seven Georgian citizens remain in illegal custody in Russian-occupied Tskhinvali
- Georgian citizens illegally arrested by occupation forces denied bail
The co-facilitators of the meeting said they are concerned by the increased number of detentions in recent weeks and called for a humanitarian approach to all detention cases.
The next IPRM meeting is scheduled to be held on March 4.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported that another meeting was also held in Ergneti earlier today, which was related to three individuals declared missing by the Ossetian side after the 2008 Russia-Georgia war – Alan Khugayev, Alan Khachirov and Sultan Pliev.
The meeting was technically organised by the EUMM in Georgia, however, the representatives of the EUMM did not participate in the meeting.
Chairman of the Young Georgian Lawyer’s Association (GYLA) Nika Simonishvili attended the meeting. He confirmed the meeting was related to three missing individuals, adding that ‘other details of the meeting are confidential’.
The Ossetian side has been searching for the missing individuals for fourteen years in vain. International experts were also involved in the case.
RFE/RL says that the Georgian Prosecutor's Office was conducting an investigation and the parents of the missing were questioned, but so far they have not found any trace.