Representatives of State Security Service alongside representatives of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, hosted MP Wendy Morton, UK Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for European Neighborhood and the Americas at the occupation line.  

Deputy Head of State Security Service has familiarized the Minister with the grave situation on the ground that resulted from the occupation.

The attention has been stressed on the increasing militarization of the Russia’s occupation forces, so-called borderization process along the occupation line, ethnic discrimination of Georgians and illegal detention of the local residents. The case of illegal detention of Zaza Gakheladze in the occupied Tskhinvali has been underlined among others.

“I am here today at the Administrative Boundary Line which has divided Georgia from the breakaway region of South Ossetia since 2008 to see firsthand the reality of what barbed-wire fences and Russia’s ongoing military presence means for the communities living here. The human cost of this twelve-year conflict has been real. Families have been ripped apart; people have woken to find themselves living on the Russian-controlled self-styled government without access to their lands or religious places of worship.

The UK is unwavering in its support for Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. We condemn Russia’s ongoing effective control of Georgia’s breakaway territories and its pattern of hostile and destabilizing activity against the countries it perceives as a threat” - UK Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for European Neighborhood and the Americas stated.