Georgian authorities have released 4 South Ossetian prisoners and in exchange the Abkhaz and South Ossetian sides handed over to Tbilisi 12 detainees as part of a rare tripartite deal hailed by the sides as an "important humanitarian act" and result of "pragmatic cooperation".
A hostage exchange has taken place today between Georgian, Abkhazian and Ossetian prisoners at Enguri Bridge, along the Administrative Boundary Line (ABL) between Georgia and occupied Abkhazia.
According to the Office of the State Minister of Georgia for Reconciliation and Civic Equality the Abkhazian and Ossetian sides handed over 13 hostages to Georgia "who had been illegally detained for 6-7 years".
In return Georgia offered 4 prisoners to de facto Tskhinvali region.
Abkhazian and South Ossetian de facto forces arrested 13 people for illegally crossing the so-called border into the breakaway regions, while four people were arrested by the Georgian side for being involved in a terrorist attack that took place in Gori on February 1, 2005, which killed three Georgian policemen and injured more than two dozen of people, they were serving life sentences.
Both the Georgian and South Ossetian senior officials, present at the prisoner swap, were praising Abkhaz side's role in making the deal possible.
"I am very grateful to the South Ossetian side, and especially to the Abkhaz side for the cooperation," - Georgian State Minister for Reconciliation, Paata Zakareishvili said.
"I would say that Abkhaz side has worked a lot, especially Mr [Raul] Khajimba [de facto president of Abkhazia] and I want to highlight his principled approach; it is very important in the context of the peace process. We want to start new stage in Georgian-Abkhaz and Georgian-Ossetian relations and humanitarian issues always are on top. I am very satisfied with this process. It has been ongoing for a long time, for months, but all the partners, all the sides were working honestly and if it is possible to work honestly over such a difficult issue, then the same will be possible over other issues as well," - Zakareishvili said.
Breakaway Abkhazia's foreign minister Viacheslav Chirikba welcomed the prisoner swap as "an excellent example of pragmatic cooperation from all the parties."
"This is also thanks to very delicate negotiations in Geneva from where this process started," Chirikba added.
In a joint statement later on the same day, co-chairs of the Geneva International Discussions welcomed "greatly" the simultaneous release of detainees from Tbilisi, Sokhumi and Tskhinvali as a "significant humanitarian act."
"Coming to a mutual understanding about the release of detainees opens good prospects for further engagement," EU, OSCE and UN envoys said in their joint statement.
source: commonspace.eu with civil.ge
