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OSCE to raise number of military monitors in Georgia to 100

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Europe's main security and human rights watchdog said Thursday it planned to increase its military monitors in Georgia from the current eight to 100 in the wake of fighting between Russia and Georgia over breakaway South Ossetia.
VIENNA, August 14 (RIA Novosti) - Europe's main security and human rights watchdog said Thursday it planned to increase its military monitors in Georgia from the current eight to 100 in the wake of fighting between Russia and Georgia over breakaway South Ossetia.

Heikki Talvitie, Europe's special representative for the South Caucasus, said the regional mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) would then comprise 300 people.

Talvitie said the move was discussed Thursday at a session of the OSCE Permanent Council, the main standing body for consultation and decision-making, and a final decision would be made in the near future.

"We have discussed this proposal in the permanent council and there is no decision yet, but I can say that there is no objection in principle on this," Talvitie said.

He did not say where the military experts would be placed, but said additional monitors would be supervising openness of humanitarian aid channels as well as implementation by all sides involved of all obligations concerning ceasefire and troop withdrawal.

Meanwhile, South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity, who along with the president of Abkhazia met with the Russian president on Thursday, said there would be no international monitors in South Ossetia.

"We can hold talks with the OSCE, the EU and our friends from the UN only on the number of observers," Kokoity said. "The observers will be working not on the territory of South Ossetia, but on the territory of Georgia."

"Only Russian peacekeepers will be in South Ossetia and Abkhazia," he added. "There will be no Georgian peacekeepers on the territory of South Ossetia."

Washington and London have been critical of Moscow's actions during the conflict, which erupted on August 8 when Georgia attacked Tskhinvali, the capital of breakaway South Ossetia.

During the subsequent counter operation to expel Georgian troops from the de facto independent republic and to reinforce Russian peacekeepers, Moscow sent some 10,000 troops and several hundred armored vehicles into the region.

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