Meeting between Boris Chochiev and Zharko Petrovich

On 22 July 2008 the Deputy Chairman of the Government, the Minister for Special Affairs of the RSO, the JCC Co-chair from the South Ossetian side Boris Chochiev received the Deputy Head of OSCE Mission to Georgia Ryan Grist, the Head of the Tskhinval Field Office Grzegorz Michalski, who represented the new Councilor on the political issues of the OSCE Mission Zharko Petrovich.

From the South Ossetian side the meeting was attended by the Secretary of the South Ossetian part of the JCC, the Representative of the Government of the Republic of South Ossetia to the Steering Committee Leonid Tibilov.

Zharko Petrovich is the citizen of Serbia, lawyer by profession. He has been worked a lot in the former Soviet Republics, for almost a year he had been working in Abkhazia dealing with the human rights.

During the meeting Boris Chochiev noted that there’s constructive interaction between the OSCE Mission and South Ossetia despite all problems of the negotiation process.

“For two years the negotiation process is in the frozen condition the result of which is the failure of the restoration process of the destroyed economy, the implementation of economical projects, including the Donor program”, Boris Chochiev noted.

He underscored that “as regards the political issues we have complaints in relation to the biased information of the situation in South Ossetia. The leadership of the OSCE and the representatives of the OSCE participating states receive partial, unilateral and tendentious information which was repeatedly proved by the South Ossetian side. We do not demand that the information should be pro-Ossetian or pro-Georgian, it must be objective”.

The Minister noted that “the South Ossetian side is ready to go to Brussels provided that the North Ossetian side will participate there. We also wait the appointment of Yakobashvili as the Special Representative on the resolution of conflicts”.

The participants of the meeting also discussed the fate of the arrested citizens of South Ossetia by the Georgian police.

Also there was a discussion of the implementation of the Donor Program of Economic Rehabilitation of the zone of the Georgian – Ossetian conflict. It was noted that today the Georgian side agreed to allow one truck with the constructive materials through in order to finish the construction of the school in Zar till 1 September. The construction of school in the village of Tbet will not be finished till September.

During the meeting the issues representing mutual interest were also discussed.
The meeting went in the constructive and friendly atmosphere.