OSCE MONITORING MISSION ON GEORGIAN-RUSSIAN BORDER NOT TO BE RESUMED

TBILISI, March 22 (RIA Novosti) - The OSCE monitoring mission on the Georgian-Russian border will not be resumed, nor the setting up on its technical base of a training mission for passing experience to Georgian border-guards is expected, Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgi Gomiashvili has told Novosti-Georgia.

"For us, the OSCE is closed in this direction", he said.

This situation has taken shape because Russia thinks that the monitoring mission costs too much, Gomiashvili said.

He said that the Georgian side is ready to make all sort of concessions for continuing the OSCE border mission.

"We have agreed to cut the project and its price from the annual 15 to eight million euros", Gomiashvili said.

At the present moment, Georgia is talking with the European Union the setting up of a new observation mission on the Georgian-Russian border, he said.

"We've entrusted this question to the European Union", he said. Whether or not the Baltics, which have voiced readiness, will participate in the EU mission on the Georgian-Russian border is a matter of closed negotiations and it is yet premature to say something to this effect, Gomiashvili said.