EU Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs States Tension at the ABL is Unacceptable

EU Spokesperson Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Maja Kocijancic says that the rising pressure along the Administrative Boundary Line (ABL) with Georgia’s Russian-occupied Tskhinvali region “is completely unacceptable.”

“So are factually incorrect statements from within South Ossetia [Tskhinvali] concerning security actions and developments on the ground, which only fuel further tensions,” Kocijancic said.

She indicated that the EU calls on all players “to show maximum restraint and refrain from any steps or statements that could escalate the situation”.

Kocijancic said that apparatuses put in place to prevent incidents and find solutions - such as the hotline, the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism in Ergneti (IPRM) and the Geneva International Discussions – “must be consistently used”. 

The de-facto governance of Tskhinvali says that the passage points will revive as soon as Tbilisi detaches an ordinary police post from the village of Chorchana, Khashuri municipality, which is located on Tbilisi-administered territory.

The de-facto leadership has already opened two professed ‘police posts’ near the ABL territory after Tbilisi introduced the police post in Chorchana at the end of August 2019, further damaging the condition on the ground.