OSCE Chairman stresses need for peaceful solution in Georgian-Ossetian conflict

SOFIA, 14 July 2004 - The OSCE's Chairman-in-Office, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy, stressed the need to find a peaceful solution to the Georgian-Ossetian conflict when he spoke to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili by telephone on Wednesday.

The Chairman-in-Office continues to follow the situation in the zone of conflict very closely and has held consultations by telephone in the past week with the Prime Minister of Georgia, Zurab Zhvania, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Igor Ivanov.

The issue was also high on the agenda at meetings of the OSCE and EU Ministerial Troikas in Brussels on 12 July and of the OSCE Troika - comprising the foreign ministers of Bulgaria, the Netherlands and Slovenia - on 13 July.

In Wednesday's talks, President Saakashvili and Minister Passy both stressed the urgent need for measures to defuse the current tensions and ensure the continuation of the settlement process. "We reaffirmed the need to find a solution by purely peaceful means," the Chairman-in-Office said.

The idea of a possible enhanced OSCE presence in the zone of conflict was also discussed.

The Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Ambassador Ivan Naydenov, is at present participating in a meeting in Moscow of the Joint Control Commission on the settlement of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict.