MOSCOW. May 23 (Interfax) - The Russian Foreign Ministry has issued a statement saying the recent detention of Georgian citizens in South Ossetia should not be used for fueling unneeded confrontation and denied the allegations by the EU mission stating that Russian border guards made no contact with EU officials on the matter.
The Georgian Foreign Ministry earlier reported that five citizens of Georgia had been detained in the area of the village of Lapan, South Ossetia, in the morning of May 18. The Georgian government earlier called the incident in the Sachkhersky district, where, according to Georgian sources, five locals came under fire, a major violation of the ceasefire agreement and called on Russia to immediately make specific steps to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future.
Anvar Azimov, a permanent representative of Russia in the OSCE, has issued a statement denying the EU mission's allegations that Russian border guards made no contact with the EU monitors on the detention and exchange of fire between the five Georgians and the South Ossetian patrol.
"We believe that it is premature to draw any conclusions before we have all facts and circumstances associated with this incident. We should not use this incident, in which people were hurt, to provoke unneeded polemic and fuel confrontation in this hall," Azimov said in his speech in Vienna. The text of his speech has been posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry website.
"It is up to the South Ossetian and Georgian officials to investigate this incident. They have the necessary tools for that. These tools are meetings within the framework of mechanisms for preventing and reacting to incidents involving OSCE officials," he said.
"As we know, the South Ossetian patrol detained a group of young citizens of Georgia in the area of the Cholto Gorge at 8:00 a.m. on May 18. The young men had illegally crossed the border to gather a herb called jojjoli, which is added to food. After this detention, South Ossetian - I reiterate, South Ossetian not Russian - border guards continued patrolling and confronted a similar group of people, who had illegally crossed the border," Azimov said.
"When an attempt was made to detain that group, the South Ossetian border guards came under fire from hunting weapons from a nearby forest. The South Ossetian patrol had to return fire, as a result of which two people were wounded. The South Ossetian border guards offered to give them medical assistance, which hey refused," he said.
"As a result, the detainees, including a 17-year old teenager, who had not sustained any bullet wounds and was perfectly fine, were taken to Tskhinvali and were then released. We would like to point out to the Permanent Council that the issue of border delimitation in the area of the Cholto Gorge has been raised by South Ossetia in the Geneva discussions and in meetings of the Mechanisms for Preventing and Reacting to Incidents, but there was no response from Georgia," he said.