EUMM

EUMM regrets the decision of South Ossetian participants not to attend the meeting of the Incident Prevention and Reaction Mechanism scheduled for 19 November.

“Continued dialogue is the only way forward”, Head of EUMM Ambassador Haber stated. “Despite the frustration caused by procedural divergences challenging the effectiveness of the mechanism, all participants should value the significance of this forum as an instrument to exchange information and to deal with concrete cases on the ground”.

Regular exchanges among Georgian, Russian, South Ossetian, OSCE and EU participants within the framework of the Incident Prevention and Reaction Mechanism have helped bring home a number of people detained on both sides of the administrative boundary line. “We hope that the mechanism will be in a position to keep performing this important role”, Ambassador Haber added. “We call on all participants to fulfil their responsibilities towards the civilian population exposed to the problems of the post-conflict situation and we encourage them to return to the talks as soon as possible.”