On Tuesday, 17 February, a NATO delegation led by the Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, Robert Simmons, plus Liaison Officers for the Caucasus visited the headquarters of the European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM). They were briefed by the Deputy Head of Mission (DHoM), General Gilles Janvier on EUMM’s activities and challenges on the ground. General Janvier stressed the work to implement the Mission’s mandate on normalisation, stabilisation and confidence building measures. He highlighted the efforts made to build regular contacts with all the sides of the conflict. The confidence building efforts made by EUMM include monitoring all check points, the situation of the Georgian police and the special police force units. A very important step forward was the signature in January of the Memorandum of Understanding with the Georgian Ministry of Defence. The Deputy Chief of Operations explained the details of this MoU and the implementation of it on the ground.
The incidents happening along the administrative boundary lines remain one of EUMM’s main concerns. Unfortunately, often, there is no clear evidence as to who is responsible. The EUMM has to rely on information from local people as well as the Georgian police and Government Ministries. It would like to have the opportunity to gather more details from the authorities on both sides of the administrative boundary lines through an effective incident prevention mechanism.
The NATO team stressed the cooperation that NATO wants to have with EUMM and acknowledged and praised the work of the Mission.
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