As agreed at the sixth round of the Geneva Discussions on 1 July 2009, the first consultative meeting under United Nations auspices of the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism took place in Gali on 14 July 2009.
With all participants present, this meeting addressed questions regarding the practical organisation of work and modalities of future meetings.
All participants actively engaged on all points on the agenda, thus contributing to a good and productive meeting.
Agreement was reached on all issues except one. There was agreement on the periodicity of meetings, on the format of the meetings, on the working languages of the meetings, on the way summary conclusions of meetings will be drawn and the agenda will be set, on the chairmanship of the next meetings, and on the practical set-up of the “hotline”. The only issue that will be further discussed at the next meeting is the locations where the meetings should be convened.
As all participants agreed to meet on a bi-weekly basis, the next meeting under United Nations auspices will take place on 28 July 2009. It was also agreed that this meeting will take place in Gali.