I have received extremely worrying information about unilateral changes to the Administrative Border Line (ABL) of the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia, and about continuous borderisation of this ABL, by Russian forces. These actions are all the more alarming because of the proximity of the Baku-Supsa pipeline, which is of crucial economic importance for the region,” said Anne Brasseur, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
“The Assembly has consistently expressed its support for the territorial integrity of Georgia. I wish to reiterate our position: the borderisation of the ABL runs counter to international law and only serves to escalate tension. Instead of bringing people on both sides of the line together, these actions drive them further apart, which I can only strongly condemn, as I did after I visited the ABL last May.”