Kazakh OSCE presidency calls for more trust and stability in South Caucasus

While the situation in the South Caucasus after the conflict in Georgia has stabilized, provocative statements from both Moscow and Tbilisi cause concern, the OSCE said.

As OSCE chairman, Kazakhstan called the tenth round of the Geneva talks Tuesday another important step to reduce the existing tensions in the South Caucasus.

“The absence of any dialogue between the sides may cause additional tension,” OSCE Chairperson-In-Office Special Representative Bolat Nurgaliyev said.

EU representative Pierre Morel and U.N. Representative Antti Turunen, who are both co-chairs involved in the talks, said domestic incidents should be solved through the incident prevention and response mechanism (IPRM) established in Geneva Feb. 18, 2009. Further work is being done to facilitate the activities of IPRM.

The second part of IPRM has had no effect since October 2009, Nurgaliyev stressed with regret, calling for the resumption of the mechanism in its entirety.

The talks in Geneva were held in two parallel working groups on security and stability and humanitarian issues.

Nurgaliyev pledged to continue talks on humanitarian activities, as well as gas supplies and restoring water supply networks.

Nurgaliyev, Turunen and Morel also discussed with participants temporary actions to reach an agreement on the potential non-use of force.

The co-chairs agreed with the participants to hold the next meeting in Geneva June 8.