OSCE makes last Georgia patrol, issues warning

By Matt Robinson

TBILISI (Reuters) - The OSCE's mission in Georgia has warned of a new conflict over the breakaway region of South Ossetia with its monitors facing a deadline to leave next week.

Its 20 military monitors in Georgia conducted their final patrol up to the de facto border with South Ossetia on Friday before a June 30 deadline to pull out after 17 years.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe must withdraw after Russia opposed extending the current mandate having recognized South Ossetia as independent in the wake of last August's war with Georgia.

A similar dispute over sovereignty saw Russia this month veto an extension to the mandate of some 130 U.N. observers in Abkhazia, Georgia's other breakaway region also recognized by the Kremlin as independent.

The European Union, with 225 unarmed monitors deployed after the five-day war, stands to be alone in patrolling up to the de facto borders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Authorities in both regions have forbidden them to go further.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) thinktank warned this week of the risk of new "full-blown hostilities" in the absence of an "effective security regime in and around the conflict zones."

Asked about the warning, OSCE mission head Ambassador Terhi Hakala told Reuters this week: "Unfortunately I think it is possible. I share the analysis of the ICG."

"The situation is unstable. The security situation is a bit better but it is not good definitely."

"EYES AND EARS"

Russia crushed a Georgian assault on pro-Moscow South Ossetia, launched in early August after weeks of escalating skirmishes in the rebel territory, which like Abkhazia threw off Tbilisi's rule in the early 1990s with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Eight OSCE monitors entered after the first war.

Moscow says the Georgia assault, which drew a devastating response from Russia, created "new realities" on the ground that the West should recognize.

"They (Russia) wanted to have an independent mission also in South Ossetia due to the fact that they recognized independence, and that's why we are in this situation," Hakala said.

"Maybe there is this interpretation of course that they wouldn't like to have extra eyes and ears on the ground," the Finnish diplomat said.

Greek Foreign Minister and OSCE chair Dora Bakoyanni told Reuters this week the OSCE still hoped for a deal to salvage the mission before Tuesday. But negotiations have already been halted. Hakala spoke in an improvised office in a Tbilisi hotel having moved out of the mission headquarters.

In white armored 4x4s, the monitors conducted their last patrol to the Georgian villages on the boundary on Friday, having been denied access to South Ossetia since the war.