Georgian and South Ossetian officials have agreed to hold direct talks for the first time in a decade this week amid mounting tensions in the rebel region, a Georgian official said on Tuesday.
South Ossetia’s rebel government denied agreeing to the talks in a statement on its Web site, but a senior Russian official confirmed the discussions were to take place today.
Georgian Reintegration Minister Temur Yakobashvili said he would meet today with senior South Ossetian officials in the rebel capital Tskhinvali.
PHOTO: AFP
He said the landmark talks, the first direct bilateral contact between the two sides for at least a decade, “could mark a breakthrough in resolving the conflict.”
Russia’s negotiator on South Ossetia, Ambassador-at-Large Yury Popov, also told the ITAR-TASS news agency that the talks would take place, adding that Russia would take part.
“We hope the sides will manage to find compromise decisions that will promote the removal of tensions in the region,” he was quoted as saying.
Georgia’s foreign ministry also said Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze would meet Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Grigory Karasin in Moscow later this week to discuss the situation in South Ossetia.
The reports came after Moscow warned it would defend Russian citizens living in South Ossetia, Russian media said.
South Ossetia has evacuated hundreds of women and children to Russia over the past few days after six people were killed on Friday by sniper and mortar fire from Georgian positions, the rebel province’s government said.
Georgian Deputy Interior Minister Eka Zguladze on Tuesday denied rebel claims of a Georgian military buildup near South Ossetia and that Georgian forces had been the first to fire on rebel positions.
“If we use force, it is only in cases where it is absolutely necessary to defend the lives of law-enforcement officers,” she told journalists during a visit with European diplomats to Georgian-controlled areas of South Ossetia.
“We are not preparing for war,” Zguladze said. “There is no significant buildup.”
The diplomats were shown a series of homes and police checkpoints that Georgia alleges came under grenade and mortar fire from South Ossetia over the weekend. Zguladze said six civilians and nine police were injured in the attacks.
Local residents said the fighting had been the worst in years.
“Intense shooting continued for hours,” said Omar Champuridze, 64, who received minor injuries when his home in the village of Zemo Nikozi was struck by a shell.
He accused Russia of fanning tensions in the region, saying “neither the Ossetian nor the Georgian people want war, but someone is trying to provoke a conflict.”
South Ossetia broke away from the rest of Georgia after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Russia has given the province diplomatic and economic support
In other developments, a senior Russian officer accused Georgia yesterday of sending military jets into South Ossetia overnight, but Tbilisi swiftly denied the allegation.
Interfax news agency quoted the deputy commander of Russia’s peacekeepers in South Ossetia as saying that military jets made eight overflights after taking off from the Georgian city of Gori.
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