Although Vladimir Putin announced that Abkhazia and Southern Osya would not be accepted in the territory of Russia during the meeting with leading world mass media representatives in Moscow, the authorities of those territories still hope to join Russia. The president of Southern Osya, Edward Kokotya said that they were going to apply to the Russian Constitutional Court. In fact, he remembered that they had thought about doing that almost two years ago, but at that time the Court told them that they didn’t have such a right to take such cases under consideration. But things are different now, despite Putin’s announcement.
First, things are not looking too good for Georgian-Russian relations. Second, Russian state officials of different government levels have a positive opinion about Kokotya’s announcements. The proof is the announcement of representative of the Russian foreign affairs ministry, Mikhail Kaminin. This added salt to the : “It is more of a possibility than a reality to see Georgia united from the legal and political perspectives. Georgia will be united only after many difficult negotiations because there are many principles in Southern Osya’s approach, which are approved by the international community, for example the self-determination principle”.
This announcement served as a firm basis and a new reason for Kokotya to announce that they are almost done with collecting documents in Tskhinvali, showing that Souhtern Osya has joined Russia along with Northern Osya, but never gone out of it, i.e. they have documents proving that and say that there aren’t any documents proving the opposite. After that, Russian foreign affairs minister Sergey lavrorv said that he had been informed that Georgia was improving its military capacity with the purpose of solving the problem and recovering its territorial integrity with the help of pressure. “Normal countries in normal conditions don’t need so many weapons. Accordingly, we may make assumptions. But we will do our best to stop the powers that want to start a war in the Southern Caucasus”, announced Lavrov.
As for the Georgian authorities, they blamed Russia of preventing peace-making activities in the Tskhenvali region. “Soldiers come to that region through the Roki tunnel, which is not under our control. They don’t rotate the peace-keeping troops there, but bring more and more military power”, announced the Georgian defense ministry. According to the Georgian “Alya” newspaper, over 1000 soldiers were also brought to that region from Adigea.
Georgian authorities aren’t saying a word for the time being. The conflict resolution minister, Georgi Khaindrava was the only one who managed to give information and explanations concerning the abovementioned problems. “There can’t be any documents proving the fact that Northern Osya and Southern Osya are united, it is impossible. I want to point out one more time that Southern Osya was founded during the occupation regime of the Soviet Union, and now Russia is continuing the same policy as the Soviet Union. The referendum that the authorities of Southern Osya and Abkhazia want to organize are illegal and the international community will not approve the results. As I see, only one country can accept the results of referendums done in mono-ethnic countries, and that country is Russia. The models that are discussed to apply in this case like they did with Serbia will not reach success because this case is different, besides that in that case they made an agreement with Serbia and it was mutual. As for Kaminin’s announcement, I think it is contradicting: he can’t accept the country’s territorial integrity fact and say that it may join another country at the same time. This announcement reveals the plans of our Northern neighbor. Once again, I want to remind the Russian officials that by encouraging such things in Georgia, they are undermining their state from the inside. In that case, Russia will have serious territorial problems not only in the Northern Caucasus, but also internal affairs”, said Georgi Khaindrava to our correspondent.