GEORGIA: FIRST MEETING OF INCIDENT PREVENTION

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 TBILISI 000808

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/28/2019
TAGS: PGOV MOPS RS GG
SUBJECT: GEORGIA: FIRST MEETING OF INCIDENT PREVENTION
MECHANISM

REF: A. TBILISI 0674

B. GENEVA 0183

C. MOSCOW 1082

Classified By: Ambassador John F. Tefft for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) Summary and comment. The first meeting of the Joint
Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (JIPRM) was held
on April 23 on the South Ossetian administrative boundary
line at Ergneti. The fact the meeting occurred was a minor
victory itself, and the parties agreed to hold a subsequent
meeting the first week of May. No actual incidents were
discussed, however, and only marginal progress was made on
procedural issues. The South Ossetian and Russian
participants sought to undermine the OSCE's role in the
process, suggesting that the EU and Russia should be
co-chairs. Both the EUMM and the OSCE believe that the next
meeting is unlikely to be useful unless the chairmanship
issue is resolved beforehand. Although the fact of the
meeting is indeed positive, the mechanism will only be useful
it can be structured in a practical way, to enable the
consideration of concrete concerns without the introduction
of intractable political issues. Initial signals from the
South Ossetians and Russians suggest the latter might be
their intention. End summary and comment.

THE FORMAT


2. (SBU) On April 24, EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM) Chief of
Mission Hansjoerg Haber offered his diplomatic colleagues a
readout of the meeting (most of the following account is
based on his comments). The parties involved included the
EUMM, OSCE, Georgia, Russia, and South Ossetian de facto
authorities, with several delegations sending fairly senior
representatives (see paragraph 13 for a list of
participants). The meeting started a few minutes after 1300
in a tent on the administrative boundary near Ergneti and
lasted nearly four hours; much of the time was spent on
interpretation. The day was cold, with temperatures hovering
around the freezing point and bits of snow drifting into the
venue. Haber and Deputy Head of the OSCE Conflict Prevention
Center Pascal Heyman co-chaired the meeting. (The issue of
the chairmanship came up several times, however, with the
South Ossetians and Russians objecting to the OSCE's
involvement.) The formal agenda focused on the logistics and
format of the JIPRM itself and included eight items, although
not all items were discussed: 1) Location; 2) Working
language; 3) Meeting agendas; 4) Official minutes of the
meetings; 5) Chairmanship; 6) Calendar of meetings; 7)
Hotline; and 8) Joint visits. Afterwards the various parties
made statements to journalists on the scene, who represented
mostly Georgian outlets, but also included at least one
Russian reporter.

THE DISCUSSION


3. (C) The chairmanship issue came up the most often and
raised the most contention. Haber took the position that the
JIPRM derived from the Geneva process, which is co-chaired by
the EU, OSCE and UN, so the South Ossetia version of the
Mechanism should be chaired by the two Geneva chairs that
work in the area (i.e., EUMM and OSCE). South Ossetia's
primary representative, Merab Chigoev, first objected to the
EUMM's role as chair; Haber offered to work as a
"facilitator" instead, which Chigoev seemed to accept.
Chigoev then rejected the OSCE outright, arguing that the
organization has no mandate to operate. He proposed that
Russia and the EUMM should co-chair the meetings, and the
Russian participants expressed their willingness to accept
QRussian participants expressed their willingness to accept
the nomination. A Russian representative even suggested that
he Geneva talks themselves derived from, as he referred to
it, the Sarkozy-Medvedev agreement, so the EU and Russia
should therefore serve as chairs. Haber, OSCE's Pascal
Heyman, and Georgia's Shota Utiashvili (Ministry of Internal
Affairs) all pushed back, and the issue was left unresolved.
In his briefing for diplomats, Haber characterized the South
Ossetian and Russian maneuver as an obvious setup, designed
to undermine the OSCE's position; in a later conversation, an
OSCE monitor described it to PolOff the same way.


4. (SBU) On the question of location, the South Ossetians had
originally indicated they would only accept meetings right on
the administrative boundary line (where the April 23 meeting
took place),but the physical difficulties of meeting in a
tent apparently convinced them to be more flexible. All
agreed to hold the next meeting south of the administrative
boundary line, in Georgian-controlled territory, although the
specific venue (likely to be some kind of a public building,
such as a school) was not identified. The location of

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subsequent meetings was not determined.


5. (C) On the working language, Haber insisted the JIPRM
follow the format of the Geneva talks and be conducted in
English and Russian. The Russians suggested that Russian
would be more practical, since most participants spoke
Russian, but Haber insisted on English. Although the
Russians portrayed their suggestion as a purely pragmatic
one, Haber suggested to his diplomatic colleagues that over
the course of the meeting it became clear that the Russians
saw the use of Russian as more than simply a practical
choice; they seemed to want to make the format of the
meetings as close to that of the old Joint Control Commission
(JCC) as possible. In a separate conversation, OSCE delegate
Steve Young noted to PolOff that at least one of the Russian
participants spoke no English. He also pointed out that
conducting the meetings in Russian would give the Russian
participants much greater control over the nuances of the
discussion and any statements or documents that were produced.


6. (SBU) Haber told the diplomatic corps he had proposed a
generic agenda, to be used in all meetings, consisting of
four points: 1) Assessment of the situation; 2) Exchange of
information on incidents; 3) Discussion of the freedom of
movement; and 4) Other business. Parties could provide
information before the meeting, to be able to discuss it at
the meeting, or could provide the information at the meeting
and then discuss it at the following session. On the
discussion of incidents, parties would take turns raising
individual occurrences, so that the parties themselves could
determine their priorities for discussion. Haber did not
receive a reaction to this proposal.


7. (C) Regarding the schedule of the JIPRM's meetings, the
Russian participants proposed biweekly sessions (which, as
Haber pointed out to his diplomatic colleagues, was not in
accordance with the original Geneva proposal for weekly
meetings, although he did not raise an objection). They said
they would next be available between May 3 and May 7. Haber
interpreted this to mean that the Russian side again wanted
to send a relatively high-level delegation from Moscow. The
sides agreed to this timeframe. On the hotline, everyone
agreed such a structure should function, but at this point
the EUMM only has a phone number for Colonel Anatoliy
Tarasov, Commander of the Russian Forces in Tskhinvali (who
also participated in this meeting). The meeting did not take
up the issue of joint visits, but the Russian side said it
considered them important, which surprised Haber.


8. (SBU) At the conclusion of the meeting, Haber noted that
the group had not reached much agreement. Major General
Vyacheslav Proshkin, of the Russian Ministry of Defense
(MOD),who is the Chief of the CIS Military Cooperation
Department, however, portrayed it as a success, because the
fact that the JIPRM met at all was important. He made a
similar statement to the press. In his public statement,
Haber also expressed some optimism, but injected a bit more
caution into his tone than Proshkin.

ANALYSIS


9. (C) In summary, Haber told the assembled diplomats that an
optimist would conclude that the fact that the meeting took
place at all was positive; that optimist would likewise
explain that all sides felt the need to take a tough initial
position in order to position themselves for future
compromises. He did not seem to be quite this optimistic,
Qcompromises. He did not seem to be quite this optimistic,
however (as other European counterparts reported to Embassy
Moscow, ref C). He said that the chairmanship issue was a
serious one, and that if it was not worked out before the
next meeting, the next discussion would be chaotic, and the
meeting would not be worth holding. He suggested that EU
Special Representative Pierre Morel would have to get
involved in the meantime to work something out. In a
separate conversation, OSCE's Young agreed, saying that
starting another meeting without consensus on the
chairmanship would prevent the mechanism from accomplishing
anything.


10. (C) Haber saw the South Ossetian and Russian proposal for
a joint EU-Russia chairmanship as a clear attack on the OSCE;
Young agreed with this assessment. Another OSCE monitor told
PolOff that the meeting has had a very negative impact on the
OSCE monitors' morale, which was already low; they
interpreted the Russian position as a clear signal of their
intention to shut the OSCE mission down. The monitor pointed
out that one of the Russian delegates played a key role in
the closing of the OSCE's former Border Monitoring Mission
along Georgia's border with Russia; he wondered if his

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involvement was intended to send a signal that the OSCE
mission was likewise on the chopping block.


11. (C) The OSCE monitor added that his colleagues felt that,
during the meeting, Haber and the EUMM also slighted the OSCE
mission, if only through petty, perhaps even unintentional
snubs. He worried that such unspoken signals might be
interpreted by the Russians as a tacit willingness by the EU
eventually to sacrifice the OSCE's involvement. For example,
EUMM staff did not share its planned agenda for the meeting
with the OSCE until the morning of April 23, a couple of
hours before the meeting. Upon arriving at the site, the
OSCE representatives found that the road to the tent was
blocked by an EUMM vehicle, so that they had to approach on
foot, while the EUMM had parked right by the tent. The OSCE
representatives found EU flags erected at the site, but had
not been asked to bring an OSCE one; they had to scrounge a
flag from an OSCE vehicle and hastily hoist it. Upon
entering the meeting, the EUMM officials did not formally
greet the OSCE representatives (who had arrived first),
although they did greet the other parties. In his
presentation to the diplomats, however, Haber made clear that
he considered the role of the EUMM and OSCE as co-chairs to
be non-negotiable.

COMMENT: NOT THE JCC!


12. (C) The OSCE monitor told PolOff he thought the South
Ossetians and Russians are seeking to turn the JIPRM into a
new JCC -- i.e., a forum for consideration of political
issues, not practical incidents. He noted that the mechanism
conceived in Geneva should consist of working-level
counterparts who know the real situation on the ground and
can work together pragmatically to resolve concrete concerns.
The high-level Russian delegation could signal a different
intent, and if -- as Haber believes -- the Russians continue
to send generals (who do not spend much time in South Ossetia
and presumably are not that familiar with day-to-day issues),
practical discussions will indeed be difficult to arrange.
It could be, of course, that the Russians are very serious
about the mechanism and only intend to signal their respect
for the process. If Haber and Young are right, however, and
a major Russian goal is to marginalize the OSCE, then a
follow-on goal might be to establish a second venue for
political discussions as a rival to Geneva, where the OSCE
also has a seat. Not only would such a goal undermine the
Geneva process, but it would undermine the still-urgent
objective of reducing the likelihood of violence and its
potential for escalation.

PARTICIPANTS


13. (U) The EUMM provided the following list of participants.

EUMM: Hansjoerg Haber, Head of Mission; Gilles Janvier,
Deputy Head of Mission; Gerard Fischer, Head of Operations;
Rosaria Puglisi, Political Advisor. Acting as interpreters:
Rinas Bendzius, Liaison Officer at Georgian Ministry of
Internal Affairs (MOIA); Per Enerud, Chief Reporting Officer.

OSCE: Pascal Heyman, Deputy Director of the Conflict
Prevention Center; Gottfried Hanne, Deputy Head of Mission;
Steve Young, Chief Military Officer; Laszlo Belagyi, Chief
Security Officer.

Russian Federation: General Antonov, Deputy Chief of Staff of
the Russian Ground Forces; Major General Vyacheslav Proshkin,
Ministry of Defense (MOD),Chief of CIS Military Cooperation
Department; Aleksey Dvinyanin, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Chief of Division, Fourth Department on CIS Countries;
QChief of Division, Fourth Department on CIS Countries;
Colonel Ruslan Boyarski, MOD; Colonel Anatoliy Tarasov,
Commander of the Russian Forces in Tskhinvali; Lieutenant
Colonel Andrey Lyatichevsk, Assistant to Commander of the
Military Base in Military-Civilian Cooperation, Tskhinvali.

Georgia: Shota Utiashvili, Ministry of Internal Affairs
(MOIA),Head of the Information and Analytical Department;
Vladimer Jugeli, MOIA, Head of the Shida Kartli Regional Main
Division; Giorgi Lomidze, MOIA, Head of Administration of
Shida Kartli Regional Main Division.

South Ossetia de facto authorities: Merab Ilyich Chigoev,
deputy head of the de facto "plenipotentiary representative
of the president of the republic of South Ossetia for
post-conflict settlement issues"; Vitaly Georgievich Gassiev,
de facto "first deputy minister of the interior"; Gennady
Nikolaevich Yemelyanenko, de facto "deputy head of the border
guards service"; Vadim Otarovich Syukayev, de facto "deputy
chief of staff of the ministry of defense"; Guram

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Grigorievich Sobayev, advisor to the de facto
"plenipotentiary representative of the president of the
republic of South Ossetia for post-conflict settlement
issues."
TEFFT