Comment of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of South Ossetia

The resolution titled “10 Years after the August War”, which calls for Russia to revoke recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and to withdraw its troops from the territory of Georgia, was adopted at the annual session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Berlin on July 11. The desire to include Georgia in NATO was reaffirmed by the authorities of the Alliance at NATO summit in Brussels on the same day.

One cannot but pay attention at the duplicating character of the resolutions, adopted at Parliamentary Assemblies of OSCE and NATO, which had almost been copied – there were undisguised demonstration of political and military support for the aggressor state Georgia and attempt to provoke a tidal wave of anger against Russia.

We consider adoption of similar resolutions as nothing but a provocative course, aimed at unquestioning support for the revanchist policy of Georgia and deliberate undermining of the political and military balance, established in Transcaucasia.

Georgian authorities have already demonstrated to the whole world that they perceive similar support as an announcement of the policy of all-permissiveness. Indeed, the campaign of August 2008 wasn’t developed in an hour, but became accomplishable, among others, after the same promise to include Georgia in NATO made at the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008.

South Ossetia was consistently pointing at dangerous consequences of the on-going building up of Georgian military potential, which was done with the support from the USA and NATO, we appealed the Alliance to change its incorrect choice, but those appeals were left unheard.

Unfortunately, the resolution, adopted by the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly tells nothing about the activity, or it’s better to say about the passivity of its own missions in Georgia and South Ossetia in the period of Georgian aggression, when 2 hours before the beginning of the military activity officers of the mission eloped from Tskhinval without warning the population. The OSCE mission failed to fulfill its mandate and to prevent military aggression of Georgia against South Ossetia, and it caused a lot of reasonable reprimands from the South Ossetian side. The policy of hypocrisy is not restricted by borders.

All these things in line with complete loss of trust in Georgia, which strongly refuses of signing a legally binding document on non-use of force, which has been sticking to its plan to annex the territory of South Ossetia and has been using to the maximum extent possible its opportunities at international stages to fight the information warfare, cause serious concern.

Tskhival is once again addressing the Western countries to draw conclusions and weight up the consequences of August 2008, consider the complicated balance of powers in the region and prevent half-baked decisions, which could bring into action powers of completely different levels and scales.

 

July 13, 2018, Tskhinval

 

13.07.2018