President Saakashvili will address the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE) when it gathers for a winter session on January 21-25.

Also during its winter session PACE will hold on January 23 debates on humanitarian situation in the areas affected by the August, 2008 war.

According to a draft resolution, which will be discussed by the PACE, more than four years after the war the humanitarian consequences of the conflict “remain a major concern”.

“While the emergency needs of internally displaced persons and refugees have been largely taken care of, there is a slow but sure freezing of the conflict where people’s lives are becoming trumped by politics. This makes progress on the humanitarian front difficult,” the draft resolution reads. “The preoccupation on all sides, about status issues, access across the administrative boundary line (ABL) and terminology issues poisons the possibility of progress on the humanitarian front. These issues are political in nature and should be secondary and not primary in any humanitarian discussion. Recent political changes in Georgia following the elections on 1 October 2012, provide an opportunity for a change of dialogue on all sides.”

“What is needed to restore security and long-term trust is not armies facing each other along the ABL, but a strong non-partisan international peacekeeping and monitoring presence both sides of the line,” the draft resolution says.