Daur Kove, the Abkhazian Foreign Minister held a regular video conference with the Co-Chairs of the Geneva International Discussions on Security and Stability in Transcaucasia on June 9,2020.
The distribution of coronavirus in the Republic of Abkhazia, security and stability in the region, humanitarian issues as well as the prospects for the next round of the Geneva Discussions were discussed during the online conference.
The Head of the Foreign Ministry of Abkhazia informed the Co-Chairs of the Geneva discussions that the situation with coronavirus in the Republic is generally stable and there are no new cases of infection, with the exception of the recent cases of illness among cadets from military universities returning from the Russian Federation. Once again, the Minister expressed gratitude to all international structures for the help and assistance provided which are of a regular nature.
Daur Kove drew the attention of the Co-Chairs during the discussion of the security issue in the border areas to the case of the detention of three Georgian citizens for illegally crossing the State Abkhaz-Georgian border along the Ingur River on June 6, 2020. The Minister also said that a criminal case was opened on this fact, which will be considered by the relevant authorities.
The Foreign Minister of Abkhazia noted the need to work to avoid such situations by informing the Georgian citizens, in particular, by distributing information booklets with the rules for crossing the state border.
The border situation was rated stable and calm by all participants in the videoconference.
The Co-Chairs of the Geneva discussions raised the issue of resuming the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM). The participants of the meeting emphasized the importance of creating an environment where each of the parties could offer its own format for the work of this mechanism.
As part of the videoconference, Daur Kove drew the attention of the Co-Chairs to a provocative post of T. Beruchashvili, the Georgian Ambassador to the United Kingdom on the Twitter social network. The publication of a picture of a girl crawling through a barbed wire dedicated to the International Children's Day and designed to demonstrate an allegedly discriminatory attitude towards the residents of the Galsky district of Abkhazia, in particular, in the issue of receiving education in Georgian.
In turn, the Co-Chairs of the Geneva Discussions expressed regret that it is extremely difficult to control such publications on social networks and emphasized that they constantly urge participants to refrain from such negative rhetoric, which creates additional tension between Abkhazia and Georgia.
The co-chairs of the Geneva discussions informed that, unfortunately, it is impossible to determine the exact date of the next round today. The next meeting in a similar format is scheduled for late June.