International talks on the situation of Georgia were suspended yesterday
due to "procedural difficulties," but will resume on Nov. 18, organizers of the
talks said.
The talks "encountered procedural difficulties", and all parties present
agreed to suspend the meeting, said Pierre Morel, the EU special representative
for the Georgia issue, after the closed-door meeting in the UN headquarters of
Europe.
But Morel said it was important that the process of dialog had started, and
the process would resume on Nov. 18.
Morel refused to go to details about the "procedural difficulties." But he
indicated that they were related to "the format of meetings and the status of
participants."
Diplomatic sources said the Russian delegation did not participate in a
plenary session, while the Georgian delegation did not participate in the
following informal discussions.
That was mainly because of their dispute over the status of South Ossetia and
Abkhazia, the two breakaway regions of Georgia, which were recognized by Russia
as independent countries following the war in August.
Representatives from the two disputed regions were also at Wednesday's
meeting, but they walked out of the talks because they were not recognized as
"national delegations."
Despite the setback, UN and European officials welcomed the meeting as an
important beginning toward the solution of the Georgian crisis.
"It is important that the discussions on the Caucasus began and that the
sides could determine the date of the new meeting," Morel told reporters.
"All representatives did take the floor, and all acted and spoke in a
responsible way," said Johan Verbeke, special envoy for UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon.
"The process is on track," Verbeke told reporters.
The Geneva talks were jointly sponsored by the United Nations, the European
Union and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
They hope that the process would help build confidence between Russia and
Georgia and at a later stage tackle practical issues such as refugees and
security of the Caucasus region.
The United States was also represented at the meeting by Assistant Secretary
of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried.
