135th IPRM Meeting Held in Ergneti

The 135th meeting of the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM) took place on October 22 in the village of Ergneti, near the occupation line in Georgia’s Russia-occupied Tskhinvali region. The Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM) was established in 2009 within the framework of the Geneva International Discussions that followed the 2008 Russo-Georgian war. It serves as a forum for the regular discussion of security-related incidents and developments on the ground. IPRM meetings have been held regularly in Ergneti, near the Tskhinvali occupation line, with the participation of representatives from Tbilisi and the Tskhinvali de facto authorities. In contrast, meetings in Gali, in occupied Abkhazia, have been suspended multiple times, from 2012 to 2016, and again since 2018.

The meetings are co-facilitated by the OSCE and the European Union Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM). The meeting, which brought together the representatives of Georgia’s central government and de facto authorities of Tskhinvali/South Ossetia, was co-facilitated by Bettina Patricia Boughani, Head of the EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM), and Christoph Späti, Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for the South Caucasus. The next IPRM meeting is set to take place on December 15. SSSG Statement Georgia’s State Security Service said that “all incidents detected in the occupied region and territories adjacent to the occupation line from the previous meeting up to the present date were discussed in detail. ” During the meeting, the SSSG representatives “strictly raised the issue of bringing to justice and ensuring the enforcement of law against the representative(s) of the Russian occupation force responsible for the murder of Georgian citizen Tamaz Ginturi…