79th IPRM meeting takes place in Ergneti

Ergneti, 11 July 2017 - The 79th meeting under the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM) was held in Ergneti. The meeting took place in a productive and forthcoming atmosphere.

Ambassador Kęstutis Jankauskas, Head of the European Union Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM), and Ambassador Guenther Baechler, Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for the South Caucasus, co-facilitated the proceedings.

Ambassador Baechler opened the proceedings and Ambassador Jankauskas provided a short overall summary of events since the last meeting. These included the general security situation, Hotline activations and detention cases. It was noted that the number of Hotline activations had doubled compared to the previous period. The number of detentions was also higher than during the previous period and higher than the same period last year.

The ongoing imprisonment of Giorgi Giunashvili was again debated intensively.

The case of David Basharuli was again raised and discussed. The co-facilitators encouraged participants to disclose all available information relating to the case.

Two cases of airspace violations involving unmanned aerial vehicles were raised by participants, who agreed to look further into the cases. The co-facilitators underlined the availability of the Hotline to clarify potential airspace violations.

An incident in which security actors allegedly crossed the Administrative Boundary Line (ABL) was discussed. The co-facilitators encouraged security actors to avoid actions which could be perceived as provocative.

The participants agreed to discuss an initiative by the co-facilitators which would support safe cultivation of farmland in agreed plots along the ABL.

The installation of borderisation features, including information signs, was discussed. Ambassador Jankauskas expressed his appreciation of the pre-announcement of such installations and encouraged, also in this respect, to continue to use the Hotline for mutual information sharing. 

The co-facilitators reiterated their desire to increase transparency by expanding the range of military/security actor activities in the vicinity of the ABL, which should be pre-announced via the Hotline. The Georgian participants provided information about the upcoming exercise Noble Partner 2017.

The next IPRM meeting will take place on 7 September 2017.