OSCE calls special meeting on Georgia on Friday

VIENNA (Reuters) – The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) called a special meeting of its permanent council on Friday afternoon to discuss the fighting in Georgia’s breakaway South Ossetian region.

The meeting of the OSCE’s main regular decision-making body will be held in Vienna at 4 p.m. local (10 a.m. EDT).

Fighting between Georgian forces and Russian-backed separatists raged in and around the capital of South Ossetia on Friday after Tbilisi sent in troops to take back the territory which broke away in the 1990s.

The OSCE said it has a mandate to promote talks between the parties to the conflict with the aim of reaching a peaceful political settlement, and it monitors security on the ground using unarmed military officers.