Moscow calls on the EU to seek a compromise solution to the situation in Abkhazia, where the authorities refused to accept on its territory the head of the EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia Andrzej Tyszkiewicz, Russian Foreign Ministry reported on Friday on its website.
“A representative of the European Union has said that in this situation it is important to find compromise solutions with Sukhumi to continue the work of IPRM (Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism), which is important for security in the border regions of Abkhazia and Georgia,” said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin on Thursday in a phone conversation with EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia Philippe Lefort.
Lefort expressed concern at the refusal of Abkhazian authorities to host the head of the EUMM in Georgia, pointing out that, in his view, this “could cause serious damage to the joint work within the existing Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism to incidents”.
Karasin noted that “the position of Abkhazia has its own logic, because in the last round of Geneva talks, in response to Abkhazia's appeal, Andrzej Tyszkiewicz refused to record incidents that took place in the border zone, including several murders, and demanded the admission of EUMM on the territory of Abkhazia in a tone that was offensive to the Abkhaz representatives.”
Following the talks, Karasin and Lefort agreed to discuss all these issues in the near future with the other co-chairs of the Geneva discussions from the UN and OSCE.
