Swiss President is eager to renew OSCE monitoring mission in Georgia

The President of Switzerland is keen to renew an international monitoring mission in Georgia led by a European conflict resolution organization, which operated for 17 years before being blocked in 2009.

President Didier Burkhalter wanted to reestablish the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitoring mission, which has been opposed by Russia each year since 2009.

Burkhalter said a new mandate for the mission was needed and Switzerland, as the OSCE Chair in 2014, would support activities to renew and extend the mission's mandate in Georgia.

The Swiss leader made this comment at a press conference during his visit to Ergneti, a village on the border line separating Georgia and its breakaway region South Ossetia.

In Ergneti Burkhalter attended the 45th meeting of the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism, which was established under the Geneva International Discussions. The Discussions are co-chaired by the OSCE, the EU and the UN and aimed to discuss the issues that are plaguing the troubled region.

With this in mind, Burkhalter said the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism meetings should be held in Gali too, another town in Georgia’s breakaway region Abkhazia, where the vast majority of the population was ethnic Georgian.

"I travelled to Georgia, particularly to Ergneti, to see and assess the situation in the conflict region. The participants of the meeting assemble each month in this tent to review the security situation and improve the living conditions of the people affected by conflict,” Burkhalter said.

"I will never forget the tent that I have seen in this village.”

He expressed his concern that the barbed wire fences at border-crossing villages had split orchards, neighbors and families. "This is deeply regrettable,” he said.

Burkhalter believed people on both sides of the boundary line needed to maintain contact in order to prevent conflict and begin reconciliation.

"Meeting participants have the ability to effectively use the hotline and some other technical and pragmatic methods which are in place to resolve specific issues. This should be praised and supported,” Burkhalter said.

After witnessing the state of the village, he said the pain caused by violence in the past still remained unresolved in the country.

"Even more, despite current political difficulties, I want to ask you to continue to work in a results-oriented spirit to find pragmatic ways of conflict solution,” he added.

During his visit to Ergneti, Burkhalter visited a village family who greeted him with homemade Georgian wine.

Burkhalter left the village to attend a meeting with President of Georgia Giorgi Margvelashvili in Tbilisi.

Despite Burkhalter’s departure, the 45th meeting of Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism is continuing in Ergneti where participants will discuss a range of other topics related to the livelihood of local communities, including access to agricultural land.

The OSCE monitoring mission in Georgia was established in Tbilisi in 1992. It’s initial mandate was to promote constructive negotiation between Georgian and South Ossetian sides. The mandate also covered human rights, freedom of media and economic and environmental dimensions.