Georgia hopes an agreement will be reached on during the fourth round of Geneva talks on February 17-18 on mechanisms to investigate and prevent incidents occurring across the administrative borders, Davit Jalagania, Georgia’s deputy foreign minister, said on February 16.

The Georgian delegation, led by First Deputy Foreign Minister, Giga Bokeria, has left for Geneva, to participate in talks. The Geneva talks are held with OSCE, EU and UN mediation with the participation of Georgia, Russia and the United States, as well as the representatives from breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Mediators said during the previous round of talks in Geneva in December, the sides were close to a reaching an agreement on incident prevention mechanisms and cooperation between the law enforcement agencies, but failed to strike a final deal.

Hansjörg Haber, head of the EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM), said on January 28 that the matter became “politicized” by the South Ossetian and Abkhaz sides. He said that EU’s approach was to set up joint mechanisms for cooperation between the law enforcement officers without attracting any elements of political status; while Sokhumi and Tskhinvali want to gain some kind of recognition out of the law enforcement cooperation mechanisms, Haber added.