PROTOCOL OF THE ELEVENTH SESSION OF COORDINATION COUNCIL OF THE GEORGIAN AND ABKHAZ SIDES

The eleventh session of the Coordination Council created pursuant to Final Statement of the Georgian and Abkhazian Sides (on 17-19 November 1997), took place on October 24, 2000 in Tbilisi under the auspices of the UN and under the chairmanship of Mr. Dieter Boden - the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General and with participation of representatives of the Russian Federation as facilitator, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), member States of the Group of Friends of the UN Secretary General on Georgia Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and France in their capacity as observers.

The Georgian Side was represented by a delegation under the leadership of Mr. Giorgi Arsenishvili.

The Abkhaz Side was represented by a delegation under the leadership of Mr.Viacheslav Tsugba.

Opening the session, the Special Representative of the Secretary General pointed out that recently, in spite of some stagnation in the process of comprehensive settlement of the conflict, the negotiations within the framework of Geneva peace process have become substantially more active. The regular work of the Coordination Council in general, and the working group 1, in particular, activisation of bilateral meetings, for example meetings of ministers of healthcare and education, are very telling example of the aforementioned. The very fact that, in the long run, an issue of reburial of those perished in the village of Babushera is solved and the reburial will be implemented in the nearest future, should be evaluated as positive development in right direction.

The agenda of the meeting included the following issues:

1. Issues of sustainable non resumption of hostilities and security-related issues.

2. Refugees and internally displaced persons.

3. Economic and social problems.

4. Miscellaneous.

Representatives of the Sides made statements. Representatives of the Russian Federation in their capacity as facilitators, OSCE and the Group of Friends of the UN Secretary General, Military Observers of UNOMIG and the Commander of Peace Keeping Forces of the Commonwealth of Independent States took part in the discussions on situation in the zone of conflict. Representatives of UNDP and UNHCR made statements.

The Coordinating Council Decided:

1. To endorse recommendations of the Working group 1, adopted at the fifth session on October 4 2000, that envisages the following:

If one of the Parties to the conflict deems it necessary to increase the number of its personnel in the security zone and it exceeds 600 persons, than:

a) Party, which proposes to increase the number of its personnel and it exceeds 600 persons, must notify about it, first of all the other Party, and than UNOMIG and Peace Keeping Forces of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

b) Upon the reception of such a notification, the Chief Military Observer of UNOMIG shall convene an extraordinary session of the Working group to discuss the issue of potential increase of the number of personnel.

2. To grant official status to the quadripartite meetings and conclude these meetings with signing protocol by representatives of Sides, UNOMIG and the Peace Keeping Forces of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

3. To take measures aimed at resumption of activities of the Working group 2.

4. The Sides noted a draft document on establishment and functioning of the Joint Evaluation Commission on situation in the Gali region, which is being created within the framework of the Geneva peace process under the auspices of UN, and the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General informed the Coordination Council about these developments.

5. To call upon the Sides, to continue, as soon as possible, the negotiation process and reach agreement on concrete measures of economic cooperation within the framework of the Working group 3.

6. To convene the 12^th session of the Coordination Council no later than January 2001.

24 October 2000

(Archive of the Staff of the State Minister of Georgia for Conflict Resolution Issues/in Russian)