On 31 May 2017, the 46th meeting of the joint Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM) was held in Gali town under the chairmanship of the United Nations, with the participation of Georgian, Russian, Abkhaz and EUMM (European Union Monitoring Mission) representatives.
At the meeting, the participants followed up on some important issues discussed at the previous meetings, such as the killing of a civilian person a year ago at one of the recently closed crossing points. Regrettably, referring to “insufficient evidence”, the Abkhaz participants informed that the decision had been made to drop charges against the suspect. After one full year of intensive work and handover of investigation materials at the IPRM meetings, the decision was a great disappointment.
The participants also discussed the case of two persons detained for alleged crossing at unauthorized point in early April this year. An appeal was made to look into the case from the humanitarian point of view and to release the detainees. The participants also discussed the process of “borderization” and closure of pedestrian crossing points, which have an impact on the daily lives of the local residents.
The Chair emphasized the indisputable value of the IPRM as an important platform for the discussion on security-related issues and confidence building. He urged the participants to focus on prevention of incidents and cooperation in the investigation of any incident for justice to be served.
It was agreed to hold the next meeting on 28 June 2017.