TSKHINVALI. Oct 22 (Interfax-AVN) - The co-chairmen of Geneva talks on the Georgia issue have had a meeting with South Ossetian officials discussing the draft agenda for the next, eighth, round of Geneva talks, whose main point is a proposal for an agreement on the non-use of force.
Other items on the proposed agenda are humanitarian issues, the problem of those missing after the August 2008 South Ossetia conflict, and the issue of natural gas supply for the South Ossetian district of Leningori.
The meeting was held in South Ossetia. The co-chairmen, who were led by Charalambos Christopoulos, special representative of the chairman-in-office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, conferred with Boris Chochiyev, an envoy of the South Ossetian president, and Murat Dzhioyev, South Ossetian foreign minister.
Chochiyev, speaking at the meeting, argued that the proposal for a non-use of force pact would make the eighth round of Geneva talks a difficult exercise.
He also said South Ossetia expected that, at the eighth round, the European Union would state its official position on the report on the sources of the August 2008 conflict by the Tagliavini commission - a document that stated the findings of an EU-commissioned independent inquiry led by Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini and was published on September 30.
The report says Georgia started the 2008 war by shelling the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, but accuses Russia of creating and exploiting conditions that led to the war and of committing serious violations of international law.
"In light of the report of the Tagliavini commission, we will have to revise some of the principles, we disagree with many of the points, but we have heard what is the main point for us - Georgia started the war. We expect that at the eighth round of Geneva discussions we will hear the official position of the European Union on the Tagliavini report," Chochiyev said.
He said all the parties to the Geneva talks were to have exchange their proposals on all the issues by October 8. "We have sent out our own proposals but we are still not familiar with proposals from other parties to the talks," Chochiyev said.
Christopoulos praised the Tagliavini report and said it was the task of the Geneva talks process to bring about the restoration of all confidence mechanisms, documents and processes that can rule out a similar tragedy.
The rest of the meeting was held behind closed doors.
After it Chochiyev said the co-chairmen had passed over to South Ossetia proposed guidelines for the planned non-use of force agreement but that South Ossetia was dissatisfied with them. He said the proposed guidelines would be discussed on November 11.