A new round of talks between the eight parties involved in the negotiations on last summer's war in Georgia will take place next month, dpa quoted a joint announcment as saying today. The last round of talks ended without any announcement of further meetings, in contrast to the first three rounds. The talks have been taking place at United Nations offices in Geneva since October 2008. Little substantive progress has been made on solving the core issues of the conflict and negotiations have mostly focused on day to day security and humanitarian issues. The talks, to start on May 18 and last for two days, would be chaired by Charalampos Christopoulos from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the UN's Johan Verbeke and Pierre Morel of the EU. The other parties to the talks include Russia, Georgia, representatives of the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the United States.
