OSCE to fold its work in Georgia by June 2009

MOSCOW, March 12 (RIA Novosti) - The office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Tbilisi will terminate its work by June 2009, the director of the OSCE Conflict Prevention Center said Thursday.

Herbert Salber told Ekho Moskvy radio that the OSCE works on the principle of consensus, which means that decisions should be approved by all member states.

The OSCE mission's mandate in Georgia expired on December 31, 2008, and the mission started shutting down January 1.

The OSCE has worked in Georgia since 1992, but after its mandate expired Russia refused to agree to extend the OSCE mission in Georgia in its current form, declaring that the directive had to be changed to account for the newly independent republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Russia recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states two weeks after the end of a five-day war with Georgia last August, which began when Georgian forces attacked South Ossetia in a bid to bring it back under central control.