The return of the OSCE Mission?
Author: By Archil Sikharulidze
Member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Matteo Mecacci, and Chairman of the General Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, paid a three-day visited to Tbilisi in May. His visit sparked hopes regarding the reopening of the OSCE mission in Georgia four-years after its closing.
According to official information posted on the Italian Embassy’s website on May 16, Matteo Mecacci held various meetings in which he noted that “in the resolution approved in Belgrade last year, the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE has called for the reopening of an OSCE field mission in Georgia, and I believe that all OSCE Member States should support this goal with the aim of protecting the rights of the people who are still suffering after the 2008 conflict.”
Moreover, according to the Maestro TV report, while he visited Georgian and Russian checkpoints in Egneti, on the administrative border with South Ossetia, Matteo Mecacci announced the possibility of launching a new OSCE mission in Georgia by July 2012: “I am here due to the government’s invitation. I have met many people. I understand their condition and the OSCE will do everything to protect human rights. Recently, the Parliamentary Assembly discussed the issue of launching an OSCE office here, which will begin supposedly in July.”
The announcement made by the OSCE representative came as a surprise not only for the Ossetian side, but for Georgians as well. While the Georgian media was circulating information about the re-launching of the OSCE mission, the South Ossetian Foreign Ministry issued a special statement denying any talks or negotiations with South Ossetian authorities on the issue.
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