Foreign Minister to discuss human rights violations in occupied territories during his visit to US

Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze plans to use high level meetings in the US to discuss human rights violations in the Russia-controlled breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Georgian media reported yesterday. 

The three day visit to New York starts today and the minister will participate in a UN high level meeting on peacebuilding and sustaining peace and also plans to address participants highlighting the challenge  for Georgia regarding the occupied territories.

In addition to the talks, there will be held another event about the human rights situation in Georgia’s breakaway regions called "Achieving sustainable peace based on the respect of human rights.”

The  illegal detention of Georgian citizens by so called "Russian border guards” will be also discussed during the event.

"The current situation is unacceptable. We are going to address all the international organisations in order to minimize these occurrences and all who are guilty will be held accountable,” Janelidze said.

According to official data, 19 Georgian citizens were detained for "illegally crossing the border” in breakaway Tskhinvali, while 16 Georgians were detained in Abkhazia beginning from the beginning of this year until April 11. Last year, the 126 and 52 individuals were arrested at these points respectively. 

The Russian-backed breakaway regions of Tskhinvali and Abkhazia call the occupation line between them and the rest of Georgia "the state border” and treat any cases of line crossing by locals as cases of "illegal border crossing”. In most cases detainees are released after paying a fine.