Georgia-South Ossetia negotiations on captives exchange reach deadlock

David Sanakoyev, South Ossetian leader's Plenipotentiary for Human Rights believes that  negotiations between Georgia and South Ossetia on exchange of prisoners on the "all for all" principle came into a deadlock.

"The problem is that the sides interpret "all for all" notion in a different way" he said and explained the south Ossetian side wants the release of those who were illegally sent to prison both before and after August 2008 events. The Georgian side promised to release those, who were detained before August 2008, but recently renounced their promises," he added.

Sanakoyev informed that to end February 12 Georgians were kept in South Ossetian prisons and over 30 South Ossetians in Georgia.

On March 30, three South Ossetians were released from Georgian prisons. Two of them [Gennadiy Pliyev and Vadim Tatdayev] were kidnapped and accused of carrying weapons. The third [Khatuna Charayeva] was detained in Tbilisi over charge of keeping forfeited dollars.

The ex-prisoners told journalists they had to "admit" their guilt in exchange to chance being released in amnesty.

South Ossetian considered the release as a PR action on the threshold of another round of Geneva Talks.

Alan Pliyev, the deputy Foreign Minister, said "it's in the spirit of Georgian special services - catch and convict citizens of South Ossetia of falsified charges and release them in a convenient moment. In this case Georgia dated the "goodwill act" to the talks on security in Geneva."


/Georgia Times/