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OC Media

Interview | De Waal: ‘Is it time to come up with a bigger offer to Abkhazia?’

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Thomas de Waal is a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, a London-based think tank.

Thomas de Waal, senior fellow at Carnegie Europe and a prolific writer on the South Caucasus recently sat down with OC Media. He discussed democracy in Abkhazia and the inter­na­tion­al community’s role there, and the recent thaw in relations between Armenia and Azer­bai­jan.

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Georgian national remanded for ‘2 months’ in South Ossetian custody

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Maia Oti­nashvili (RFE/RL)

A Georgian national has been remanded in custody for two months in South Ossetia accused of helping people ‘illegally cross the border’ in exchange for money, South Ossetia’s State Security Committee (KGB) has reported. [Read more…]

Georgia takes Russia to ECHR over ‘rights violations on occupied territories’

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European Court of Human Rights (Wikipedia Commons)

Georgia has filed a case against Russia at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for ‘wide-scale practices of harass­ment, detention, assault and murder on the Russian-occupied ter­ri­to­ries of Georgia’. While Georgia argued that such practices had ‘inten­si­fied since the 2008 war’ reaching a ‘critical point’ with the February killing of Archil Tatu­nashvili, South Ossetian officials dismissed the move as ‘an absurd pro­pa­gan­da action’. [Read more…]

Interview | ‘My reconciliation policy is not about just getting territories back. It’s about people’

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Ketevan Tsikhe­lashvili serves as Georgia’s Minister for Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and Civic Equality (smr.gov.ge)

Ketevan Tsikhe­lashvili has served as Georgia’s State Minister for Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and Civic Equality, respon­si­ble for coor­di­nat­ing the country’s conflict res­o­lu­tion policy, since 2016. Tsikhe­lashvili sat down with OC Media to discuss the ministry’s successes and failures, her new peace ini­tia­tive, and the barriers to and prospects for peace.

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Backlash against Georgian wrestlers follows month of ‘Russia controversies’

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(on.ge)

Georgia’s national wrestling team made headlines on Friday after a photo was published online of the team wearing T-shirts of a North Ossetian MP to the back­ground of the Russian flag. The backlash follows a series of con­tro­ver­sies around the 10th anniver­sary of the August War, including in restau­rant chain Machakhela, nightclub Bassiani, and with Radio Free Europe’s Georgian service. [Read more…]

Ex–Abkhazian PM calls for dialogue with Tbilisi

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Former Prime Minister of Abkhazia, Sergey Shamba, has said that there is a need for more dialogue between Georgia and Abkhazia, and that it was time to think about a ‘common future’ as neigh­bours. Shamba, who served as PM from 2010–2011 as well as foreign minister from 2004-2010, made the comments in an interview published on 13 August with Echo of Moscow. [Read more…]

Georgians and Ossetians mark 10th anniversary of August War

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Protest outside the former Russian embassy in Tbilisi, 7 August 2018 (Mari Nikuradze /OC Media)

On Wednesday, com­mem­o­ra­tions were held in Tbilisi, Tskhin­vali (Tskhinval), and elsewhere com­mem­o­rat­ing the 10th anniver­sary of the August 2008 War. As the pres­i­dents of three countries gathered in Tbilisi, Georgian pres­i­den­tial candidate Salome Zura­bishvili described the war as ‘reck­less­ness, the obses­sions of a deranged president, or confusing collusion with a centuries-long enemy’. [Read more…]

Opinion | Georgia should shake up its conflict policy, and recognise the Abkhazians and Ossetians as sides

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Sokhumi (Dominik K. Cagara /OC Media)

Paata Zakareishvili served as Georgia’s State Minister for Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and Civil Equality (formerly the minister of rein­te­gra­tion) from 2012–2016.

More than 25 years have passed since the beginning of Georgia’s armed conflicts — more than enough time for Georgian society and the political elite to assess what happened and why. It’s important that we evaluate where our progress stands in solving these conflicts, and whether we, as a country, need to reeval­u­ate our aims and revise our policy — whether the achieved result are accept­able or not and if not, what we can change. [Read more…]

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to visit South Ossetia

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Anatoly Bibilov giving a Caucasian sabre to Bashar al-Assad on 23 July in Damascus (mfa-rso.su)

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has accepted an invi­ta­tion to visit Tskhin­vali (Tskhinval), South Ossetian president Anatoly Bibilov announced in a Monday press con­fer­ence. The Georgian gov­ern­ment condemned the announce­ment, calling it a ‘gross violation of inter­na­tion­al norms’.

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