Comments by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the RSO

The media continues to discuss the article from the newspaper "Izvestia" published on 14 August 2012. It reported that allegedly to the order of the President of the Republic of South Ossetia L.Kh. Tibilov "several Georgian villages located to the north of the capital of the Republic will be taken down” in South Ossetia. Current and former Georgian politicians are concerned about this article as well as some representatives of international organizations, including the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, Mr. Vollebaek.

In a statement issued after the NATO Summit in Chicago on May 21, 2012, the member states of NATO, supporting Georgia's aspirations to join NATO called on Russia "to deny its recognition of the Georgian regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states and to reduce the Russian military presence in these regions."

Expanding in Syria crisis causes more and more concern in South Ossetia. Coming from this state news are witnessing of another armed incidents, bloody terrorist acts in Damascus and numerous victims among the peaceful population. Today Syria faces difficult times and first of all due to the so called foreign well-wishers who from the one hand proclaims democracy and from the other arms nailers thus pushing opposing sides to further fierce and irreconcilable confrontation.

On July 3, 2012 the UN General Assembly approved a draft resolution on "Situation of Internally Displaced Persons and Refugees from Abkhazia, Georgia and Tskhinvali district / South Ossetia, Georgia" submitted by Georgia for balloting.

It is known that on May 20-21, 2012 the next summit of the North Atlantic Alliance will take place in Chicago. Georgia has great expectations for the forthcoming summit. The Georgian leadership hopes that the Alliance countries will designate Georgia as one of the ‘advanced countries for membership in NATO’ at the NATO Summit in Chicago. Georgia`s representatives surely love to sew on all sorts of attractive labels on their country, and it does not upset anyone in South Ossetia.

As the events reveal, the Statement of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, on the abolition of entry visas to Georgia for the citizens of the Russian Federation made in his annual address to Parliament on February 27, 2012 is another propaganda ploy aimed not only at increasing the flow of Russian citizens in Georgia, but rather at the suggestion of an international myth of the "constructiveness" and "peacefulness" of foreign policy actions of the author of this idea.

As it was earlier informed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on the 8th of April 2012 the people of South Ossetia elected the President of state in full accordance with the Constitution of Republic and election legislation. However, some countries, particularly Azerbaijan, Georgia and US made statements of considering Presidential elections in South Ossetia “illegal”.

On March 27 President Mikhail Saakashvili, speaking at the plenary session of the Summit on Nuclear Safety in Seoul called South Ossetia and Abkhazia ‘black holes’ not only for the narcotics trade, but also for the smuggling of nuclear materials.

Today, when another round of discussions on security and stability in the Caucasus starts in Geneva, these statements are quite expected. Saakashvili and other Georgian leaders cannot do without mentioning of the "sick theme" of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in all their speeches. Summit in Seoul was no exception.

On 12th March, 2012 the Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Nino Kalandadze, speaking at a weekly press briefing, commented on the report of the U.S. Department of State Strategy for Drug Control. As Georgian politicians usually do Mrs. Kalandadze with the zeal of staff ill-wisher tried to turn the position of the report, which expressed concern about the level of drug crime in Georgia, against South Ossetia and Abkhazia, accusing them of drug trafficking.

Regarding N. Kalandadze statement about the ‘territorial integrity of Georgia’

On January 26, 2012, the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Georgia Nino Kalandadze in her interview to TV broadcaster ‘Rustavy’ announced that ‘no authority of Georgia, no matter who is in power of the country, will concede independence and territorial integrity of the country’.