Meeting in Occupied Gali District Ended Without Any Results

The seventh meeting in the framework of incident prevention and response mechanisms lasted 5 hours and half in Gali district. Representatives of Georgian, Abkhazian and Russian sides, as well as representatives of the UN and EU attended the meeting in the Gali office of the UN. Head of Analytic Department of the MIA, which represented the Georgian side, reported to the journalists at the Georgian Checkpoint on the Enguri Bridge that they had not reached any concrete agreement this time. “We spoke about crossing the administrative border, about criminal situation in Gali district; we also mentioned the situation in public schools in the district.” Utiashvili did not mention what was exact topic of their conversation about schools.

When the meeting was underway in Gali district, the Human Rights Center interviewed the residents of Gali district who crossed the administrative border. Locals say they cannot cross the border without problems. Abkhazian soldiers are deployed at the illegal checkpoint now and they demand 100 Russian rubles for crossing the border. “When we do not have money, we cross the river and it is very difficult. Sometimes we meet generous soldiers who let us cross the border even without money,” explained the residents of Gali district.

The next meeting will be held in two weeks in Gali district. On October 20 de-facto deputy minister of foreign affairs of Abkhazia Maksim Ghvinjia and de-facto head of Gali district administration Ruslan Kishmaria attended the meeting. Commander of Frontier Army of the Russian FSB Iuri Zvirik represented official Moscow at the meeting.

Human Rights Center, Zugdidi