TBILISI, November 17 (RIA Novosti, Marina Kvaratskhelia) - The Joint Control Commission for the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict resolution has exhausted its potential and needs to be reformed, the Georgian foreign minister said Thursday.
In a phone conversation Gela Bezhuashvili told Slovenian Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairman Dimitrij Rupel that the self-proclaimed republic of South Ossetia, which broke away from Georgia in the early 1990s, enjoyed Russia's open support.
Rupel said the existing format of the commission set up in 1992 hindered any serious progress given the results of its recent session.
Tensions between Georgia and the self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia surged after President Mikhail Saakashvili came to power on the back of the Velvet Revolution in January 2004 and pledged to bring the regions back into the fold.
