UN secretary-general calls for ending South Ossetia conflict
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
New York, August 10, IRNA
UN-South Ossetia
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged "all parties to South Ossetia conflict immediately end hostilities and to engage, without delay, in negotiations to achieve a peaceful settlement," his office said in a statement late Saturday.
Georgia is not a member of the council, but its ambassador has attended some of the meetings over the past three days.
The council plans to keep trying for an agreement in the form of a unanimous public statement.
UN undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations, Edmond Mulet, said the UN was immediately pulling out the military observers in Kodori on advice from Abkhazia, where a military offensive was imminent.
Ban was "profoundly concerned over mounting tensions in the Abkhazia zone of conflict, including the bombing of the Upper Kodori Valley and the ongoing military buildup along the security zone," his office said.
The northern part of the Kodori gorge is the only area of northern Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia republic that has remained under Georgian government control.
The UN observers patrolled Kodori due to bloodshed between Georgia and Abkhazia in the early 1990s after the Soviet Union collapsed.
Russia, which backs the Abkhazia separatists, insists Georgian troops must withdraw from Kodori.
Russia warns the US-allied Georgia's moves toward joining NATO bolster the separatists in Abhkazia and South Ossetia.
"At this point we are particularly concerned that the conflict appears to be spreading beyond South Ossetia into Abkhazia," Mulet said.
He said that Abkhazia had warned of preparations for "a military operation in the Upper Kodori Valley, probably tomorrow morning."
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