South Ossetia's deputy parliament speaker Yury Dzitsoity has demanded official apologies from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe for refusing to condemn Georgia's aggression against the breakaway republic in August 2008.
"The OSCE should officially apologize to South Ossetia and if this is done, we will consider working with them again," Dzitsoity was reported by South Ossetia's state information committee as saying.
When Georgia attacked South Ossetia in August 2008, the OSCE remained silent as if nothing was happening, the deputy speaker said.
Commenting on Tbilisi's recent call for the OSCE member states to declare South Ossetia and Abkhazia territories "occupied" by Russia, the parliamentarian said this was nothing else but Georgian politicians' wishful thinking.
The Georgians "understand as well as we do that South Ossetia and Abkhazia are recognized states," Dzitsoity said. "On Georgia's so-called territorial integrity, I will say using the words of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov: 'Georgia will never exist in the borders in which it existed before August 2008. Two new countries, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, have been recognized, and there is no way back,'" he said.
Addressing European parliamentarians in late November, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said his country would not use force to regain the breakaway republics. The South Ossetian and Abkhazian presidents, Eduard Kokoity and Sergei Bagapsh, said on Monday they also had no intention to attack or threaten Georgia.
Russia supports the South Ossetian and Abhkaz leadership's position, an "extremely important step toward stable peace and security in Transcaucasia," the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
The statements show "sincere intentions" of the two republics' authorities to accept international legal obligations on the non-use of force, the ministry said.
"We suppose that the international community should pay special attention to the peaceful steps that have been made and study the opportunities to support them," it said.
Russia recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia two weeks after the end of the August 2008 five-day war with Georgia over the latter. The decision was slammed by Western powers. So far, only Venezuela, Nicaragua and the tiny island nation of Nauru have followed suit. RIA Novosti
