SOUTH OSSETIA: JCC ADRIFT AS RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 000650 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/24/2016 TAGS: PREL GG RS SUBJECT: SOUTH OSSETIA: JCC ADRIFT AS RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN ATMOSPHERICS DETERIORATE REF: A. TBILISI 131 ¶B. 05 MOSCOW 15690 ¶C. MOSCOW 546 Classified By: Minister-Counselor for Political Affairs Kirk Augustine. For Reasons 1.4 (B/D). ¶1. (C) Russian, Georgian and South Ossetian representatives have been unable to agree to a venue for the next Joint Control Commission (JCC) meeting, according to Russian MFA 4th CIS Department Deputy Director Semyon Grigoriyev. Grigoriyev told us January 24 that Russian Ambassador-at-Large for South Ossetia Valeriy Kenyaykin was consulting with Tskhinvali to find an acceptable venue and hold a meeting as soon as possible. ¶2. (C) Grigoriyev explained that the South Ossetians had rejected Tbilisi as a venue, citing security concerns, while the Georgians had, in turn, objected to the South Ossetian suggestion for a meeting in Vladikavkaz. The Russians preferred to meet in Tbilisi, but in the face of South Ossetian objections, had proposed to meet in Moscow. This had drawn Georgian objections. Grigoriyev said Amb. Kenyaykin was now pressing the South Ossetians to agree to a venue to allow the meeting to go forward. ¶3. (C) Noting that the MFA was "well aware" of the February 15 Georgian parliamentary deadline for progress on South Ossetia, Grigoriyev said that Russia intended to pursue a dialogue in the JCC to discuss time-tables and work plans for demilitarization and economic development. (NOTE: At the December 27-28 JCC meeting, the parties were unable to agree to the structure for a joint working group(s) to elaborate such plans.) ¶4. (C) Comment: The momentum generated by the December 6 Ljubljana OSCE Declaration's endorsement of Georgia's South Ossetia plan and "President" Kokoity's own December 12 announcement of a three-step plan dissipated after the contentious Moscow JCC meeting. We now have had a long January break, administrative reshuffling on the Russian side as DFM Loshchinin has departed for Geneva, and -- following the January 22 explosions in North Ossetia (ref C) -- bitter recriminations about the break in gas and electric supplies to Georgia. In order to help get this process back on track, we are encouraging the Russian MFA to resume engagement in the JCC. We -- and the Georgians -- should avoid linkage between energy issues and South Ossetia, but it is clear that the barbed rhetoric of recent days cannot have improved the atmospherics for negotiations on any issue. Given the fractious relationship between Georgia and Russia, we should continue to urge that the JCC parties focus on concrete, positive steps and avoid emotional language that will only make progress more difficult. BURNS