"Liakhvi" Group to address the problem of water supply in South Ossetia

The international "Liakhvi" Group, set up by the initiative of the Georgian party, will deal with the issues of rational management of water resources in the South-Ossetian conflict zone.

The "Liakhvi" Group was organized on the basis of the outcomes of the roundtable held in Tbilisi on March 22 on the topic "Water Resources and Efficient Use Thereof", said Alexander Rusetsky, Director of the Caucasus Institute of Regional Security.

The "Liakhvi" Group will address the issues related to supplying the conflict region with drinking and irrigation water by inviting international experts and specialists from South Ossetia to take part in the work.

"Water can be considered as a peacemaking resource. There are common threats; and this is a topic, where we need to find a common ground. Based on understanding of common threats, we can avoid problems for the population," said Mr Rusetsky.

With the support of the Swiss Embassy and the OSCE Mission in South Ossetia we can now continue the projects, which had been discussed – at a very serious level – before 2008, said Gela Zoziashvili, an expert on water resources.

He is sure that the projects aimed to address these problems should be of purely humanitarian nature.