The South-Ossetian and Abkhazian representatives broke off the work of the meeting in Geneva

On October 15, 2008 in Geneva it took place the first meeting in frames of international discussions about ways of providing safety to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Representatives of UNO, OSCE, EU and also delegations from South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Georgia, Russia and the USA took part in it. The format proposed by the organizers suggested holding two common meetings and then – thematic working groups on issues of safety and the problem of refugees and Internally Displaced Persons.

As informed representatives of South Ossetia from Geneva “in connection with the fact that one of the meetings did not mean the participation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russian representatives refused to take part in it either”.

Without explaining the reasons the Georgian delegation refused to take part in the common meeting at the last moment. Despite this the meeting did took place and all the delegations expressed their principal views on the situation which formed after the aggression of Georgia against South Ossetia in August 2008.

In course of the discussion of procedure issues of further work the participants did not reach an agreement in regard of mutually acceptable format of further activities. In this situation the South-Ossetian and Abkhazian representatives did not find it possible to continue the work in such a format. The meeting was broken off.

In course of the following consultations of the representative of EU Per Morel with heads of delegations it was reached and agreement that the work over the further format of the Geneva discussions will be continued taking into account the necessity of appropriate respect to the status of all the participants. It was conditioned that the consultations on those issues will be continued so as to find mutually acceptable decisions on the format in a month time.

Thus, important regulations of the documents according to the plan Medvedev-Sarkozi about the beginning of international discussions were implemented giving start to the process of providing safety to South Ossetia and Abkhazia.