OSCE Secretary General Calls on the Conflict Sides to Mutual Respect, Understanding and Restraint

On September 8th, the Secretary General of OSCE, Marc Perrin de Brichambaut made an official visit to Georgia. After the visit, the official web site of OSCE spread the official statement of Secretary General.

As the OSCE web site informs, on his visit to Georgia, Brichambaut called on the participants of Geneva discussion to mutual respect, understanding and restraint.

According to Brichambaut’s statement, the focus of his talks during the visit in Georgia was to explain the OSCE’s efforts within the Geneva discussions directed to promotion of dialogue among all participants. Secretary General thinks that this dialogue will be conducive for solving the security and humanitarian problems.

“This requires mutual respect, understanding and restraint, not only from officials but from media as well,” – considers Brichambaut.

Secretary General also indicates that he visited Odzisi, a village close to administrative boundary line, together with the EU Monitoring Mission and expressed his support for EU Mission.

“With EU, the OSCE co-operates under the framework of the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism established by the Geneva Discussions. I reaffirmed the urgent need to resume the activities of this mechanism, for the benefit of all communities affected by the August 2008 conflict,” – states Marc Perrin de Brichambaut.

According to him, the meetings in Tbilisi were informative and constructive and he looks forward to the continuation of these meetings at the OSCE Summit in Astana in December.
Within the frameworks of the visit, the Secretary General met with the non-parliamentary opposition in Tbilisi Marriott. The meeting was attended by Nino Burjanadze, David Usupashvili, Irakli Alasania, David Gamyrelidze, Viktor Dolidze, Zviad Dzidziguri and Nestan Kirtadze.

“To get the complete picture of political processes occurring in Georgia, it’s necessary to listen to the representative of all political powers, including government. This is our practice and obligation; OSCE is interested in the democratic processes taking place in Georgia; It’s important for us to receive detailed information about the democratic processes happening in the country both from the governmental and opposition powers,” – stated OSCE Secretary General after completing the meeting.

Opposition representatives discussed the relevant issues of internal politics with Marc Perrin de Brichambaut in detail, specifically – security and de-occupation, improvement of the electoral environment and constitutional changes. The talks also touched the freedom of media, human rights and the existing situation in the Penitentiary Departments.

The OSCE Secretary General met with the representatives of parliamentary opposition. According to George Akhvlediani, the head of parliamentary faction “Christian-Democrats” the opposition deputies tried to explain to the guests what kind of reality has been established in the occupied territories, especially after the OSCE mission left the conflict zone.

According to Akhvlediani, after OSCE left the conflict zone, the existing reality and information is no longer available for international community. According to his statement, the talks emphasized the necessity of the mechanisms for avoiding the informative vacuum that Europe can face towards the processes occurring in Georgian occupied territories.

As for the internal politics of the country, the representatives of parliamentary opposition talked about the constitutional reform and an improvement of electoral environment with Marc Perrin de Brichambaut. According to George Akhvlediani, the parliamentary opposition considers that OSCE’s involvement in the corresponding process would be expedient since the democratic development of Georgia is inconceivable without European monitoring.

“Georgia is actively represented in OSCE’s interests,” – stated Marc Perrin de Brichambaut in the hotel Radisson at the joint briefing together with the Minister of foreign affairs. According to him, OSCE was not given a chance for continuing work with Georgia. But OSCE is actively participating in Geneva process.

As Brichambaut states, at the meeting with Grigol Vashadze, the conversation concerned the OSCE security summit that will take place in December in Astana: “This is going to be a pan European meeting. All the problems of every country will be discussed; including the active presentation of the problems of Georgia. We discussed the works for summit preparation with Vashadze. Diplomatic resources maximally should be used for solving problems and starting the process of reconciliation.”