Georgian Interior Minister, EUMM Head review security, cooperation

Georgian Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri and Dimitrios Karabalis, the newly appointed Head of the European Union Monitoring Mission in the country, on Wednesday reviewed security matters in Georgia’s occupied territories and prospects for deepening cooperation.

In the introductory meeting, the sides discussed illegal detentions of Georgian citizens living in the vicinity of the country’s occupied Abkhazia and Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) regions, the Interior Ministry said.

Gomelauri emphasised the importance of the European Union’s support amid illegal 'borderisation' activities carried out by Russian-backed forces in Georgian villages adjacent to the administrative boundary line separating the Government-controlled territory from the occupied regions.

He also highlighted the EUMM’s “special role” in monitoring the areas adjacent to the occupied territories, and stressed it was “the only effective” international mechanism operating in Georgia.