Russian and Georgian delegates were to gather at the UN headquarters in Geneva yesterday in a fresh bid to tackle issues left over from their brief conflict after a previous attempt ended in failure.
The EU, which is co-hosting the talks along with the UN and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), has decided this time to go for an “informal approach so as not to offend any sensibilities,” a European diplomatic source said.
The first round of talks last month made no headway, with both sides blaming each other for the failure even before enter ing the same room.
A key sticking point was the inclusion or not of delegations from the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia — whose independence has been recognized by Moscow, but which Tbilisi insists still form part of Georgian sovereign territory.
Russian troops and tanks rolled into Georgia on Aug. 8 to push back a Georgian offensive to retake South Ossetia.
Russia has since withdrawn from most of Georgia in line with an EU-brokered ceasefire, but Tbilisi is furious at the continued presence of 7,600 Russian troops in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
For yesterday’s talks, each delegation “is free to include whichever people they want,” the European source said, adding that it was not yet clear who would make up the delegations from the two breakaway republics.
Two working groups are scheduled, one looking at regional security and stability, and the other at refugees and displaced people, the source said.
The EU is “optimistic” that the talks will turn out better this time than before but stressed that sensitivity will be the order of the day.
“We have to cope with touchiness on all sides. Three months ago, these people were shooting at each other,” the source said.
Tensions remain high in the region, and the French EU presidency earlier this week condemned recent violence that left at least three dead and endangered European observers.
Two Georgian police officers were killed when a bomb exploded in the village of Dvani, near the disputed region of South Ossetia on Monday last week, the Georgian government said.
A ceasefire brokered by the EU has been in place since August and EU monitors are patrolling areas near Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
WAKE-UP CALL: Firms in the private sector were not taking basic precautions, despite the cyberthreats from China and Russia, a US cybersecurity official said A ninth US telecom firm has been confirmed to have been hacked as part of a sprawling Chinese espionage campaign that gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and telephone conversations of an unknown number of Americans, a top White House official said on Friday. Officials from the administration of US President Joe Biden this month said that at least eight telecommunications companies, as well as dozens of nations, had been affected by the Chinese hacking blitz known as Salt Typhoon. US Deputy National Security Adviser for Cyber and Emerging Technologies Anne Neuberger on Friday told reporters that a ninth victim
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers
A shark attack off Egypt’s Red Sea coast killed a tourist and injured another, authorities said on Sunday, with an Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs source identifying both as Italian nationals. “Two foreigners were attacked by a shark in the northern Marsa Alam area, which led to the injury of one and the death of the other,” the Egyptian Ministry of Environment said in a statement. A source at the Italian foreign ministry said that the man killed was a 48-year-old resident of Rome. The injured man was 69 years old. They were both taken to hospital in Port Ghalib, about 50km north
MISSING: Prosecutors urged the company to move workers out of poor living conditions to hotels, but residents said many workers had already left the town Brazil has stopped issuing temporary work visas for BYD, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday, in the wake of accusations that some workers at a site owned by the Chinese electric vehicle producer had been victims of human trafficking. The announcement came days after labor authorities said they found 163 Chinese workers who had been brought to Brazil irregularly in “slavery-like” conditions at the BYD factory construction site in the northeastern state of Bahia. The workers were employed by contractor Jinjiang Group, which has denied any wrongdoing. Later, the authorities also said the workers were victims of human trafficking,
RSS