State minister of Georgia on reintegration Ekaterina Tkeshelashvili at the hearings in Georgian parliament on April 15 2011 proposed to issue to citizens of South Ossetia and Abkhazia “neutral” passports without Georgian symbology what ostensibly let their owners to go abroad and to learn there at the expense of fund of president of Georgia.
These proposals that are part of Georgian strategy towards South Ossetia and Abkhazia disclosed as early as in the beginning of the year were made soon after the adoption of resolution on Georgia at the PAEC spring session where special attention were paid to the problems of ethnical minorities in this state. Nonetheless, these proposals are unrelated to the Republic of South Ossetia that is a recognized state.
Such proposals from Georgian side are too late and not of interest to anyone in South Ossetia. The question of neutral passports for citizens of South Ossetia was treated in 1998 at the meeting of then presidents of South Ossetia and Georgia. That time Republic of South Ossetia was not recognized yet and its people faced difficulties in view of absence of internationally recognized documents, but the question was not solved.
Presently Republic of South Ossetia is an independent and recognized state with all the attributes of statehood. Its citizens has own proving identity documents – passports of citizens of the Republic of South Ossetia, which are recognized by Russia and number of states. Most of the dwellers of our country on the legal bases have also citizenship of Russian Federation and appropriate documents for trip to other countries.
Tskhinval, April 15, 2011