Brussels - The head of the European Union's monitoring
mission in Georgia on Friday invited Russian and South Ossetian
officials to substantiate their claims that attacks are being
perpetrated in the region so that they may be investigated.
'In general, such reports are overblown. There may have been
isolated shootings, but no major incident has been registered,'
Ambassador Hansjorg Haber, head of the EU's monitoring mission
(EUMM), said at a press conference in Brussels.
Haber was responding to Russian and rebels' complaints that EU
monitors were not doing enough to investigate alleged incidents in
and around Georgia's separatist regions of South Ossetia and
Abkhazia.
'I have heard of course the complaints of the South Ossetians. But
they should give us the names, the places and the times, and we would
be pleased to come over to their side of the administrative boundary
and inspect what has happened there, ask questions to witnesses and
then report objectively according to the highest standards,' Haber
said.
The EUMM mission now consists of 225 unarmed monitors from 22 EU
member states. But while the monitors are currently patrolling core
Georgia, they are still not allowed into the country's two separatist
enclaves.
Haber said it would be in their own interest to invite them in 'if
they want alleged shootings from the Georgian side to be investigated
and reported impartially.'
'We are inviting them to invite us,' Haber said.
On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the EU
mission of ignoring allegations of escalating violence taking place
in the buffer zones adjacent to the separatist regions.
'We are concerned by the careless attitude toward what is
happening in these zones. This is a dangerous game, they are playing
with fire,' Lavrov told journalists in Moscow.
But Haber said Friday that both the Russians and the South
Ossetians had failed to provide any details about such attacks.
'We don't get any details from the Russians. We just get general
allegations that there are shootings. We need to be given details in
order to verify them,' said Haber as he described relations with the
Russians as 'difficult'.
The ambassador said some 1,900 houses in villages located in the
areas adjacent to the separatist enclaves had been destroyed during
or after the August conflict.
He also said there were reports that ethnic Georgians living in
Akhalgori were being told they would have to take up Russian
passports if they wished to continue living in the disputed region.
Russia is virtually alone in recognizing South Ossetia and
Abkhazia as independent states.
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