The 56 member states of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) agreed Tuesday to send up to 100 additional monitors to Georgia at a special meeting of its Permanent Council in Vienna.
According to a press release of OSCE on Tuesday, the Permanent Council called for 20 unarmed military monitoring officers to be deployed immediately to the conflict region which is "adjacent to South Ossetia." All additional monitors would be recruited from its member states.
Aleksi Harkonen, head of the Finland's OSCE Chairmanship task force, said Tuesday that "international monitoring of the agreed ceasefire and of the humanitarian situation is urgently needed."
He said also that the OSCE had extensive experience in this region and was well-placed to respond swiftly.
OSCE member states agreed increasing the number of monitors would enable the OSCE to help stabilize the situation and support international relief efforts, although "some of the details must still be worked out," Harkonen added.
OSCE has currently 200 monitors, including eight unarmed military monitoring officers, in Georgia. The decision of sending additional monitors to Georgia was proposed by the OSCE Chairman Alexander Stubb last week.
South Ossetia, which borders Russia, is an autonomous region in Georgia. After the Soviet Union was disintegrated, South Ossetia began seeking for independence, and caused fierce conflict with the central government of Georgia.
In June of 1992, Russia, Georgia and South Ossetia established peacekeeping forces, which were responsible of implementing peacekeeping mission in the conflict region.
On August 8 of this year, Georgia troops marched into South Ossetia and bombed the capital city of South Ossetia, which worsened the situation there immediately. Russia sent then troops into this region to reinforce the Russian peace-keeping troops there.
On August 12, Russian President Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev announced ending the military action and Russian troops began retreating to Russia on August 18.
Source:Xinhua
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