( OSCE ) - The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, has condemned the actions of a group of men who said they were South Ossetian 'militia' who fired weapons and threatened a Joint Peacekeeping Forces patrol team which included unarmed OSCE military monitors in the zone of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict.
The observers were threatened when they discovered the presence of an anti-aircraft gun and a Man-Portable Air Defence weapon on Monday between the villages of Nikozi and Avnevi.
"Threatening and impeding the monitoring activities of the Joint Peacekeeping Forces and the OSCE are serious and unacceptable. The violence used during this occasion is particularly condemned," Minister Moratinos said today.
He noted that the Head of the OSCE Mission to Georgia, Ambassador Roy Reeve, informed the Co-Chairmen of the Joint Control Commission about the gravity of Monday's incident, which is the fourth of its kind in just over a year.