Recently media has again brought up a topic of issuing the so-called neutral passports to residents of South Ossetia and Abkhazia by the Georgian authorities. It has also been announced extremely negative reaction of the Abkhaz authorities to efforts of some foreign companies, functioning in Abkhazia and distributing these passports among residents of Abkhazia. For commenting the so-called "neutral" passports, the correspondent of IA "Res" have addressed the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of South Ossetia, Murat Dzhioev.
- We are talking about another "initiative" of the Georgian President's so-called "restoration of territorial integrity" of Georgia. Since 2004, these initiatives have been put forward so much that I think, the Georgian authorities have got confused themselves. We should recall the initiative to impose the "humanitarian fertilizers - sasuki"- on the residents of South Ossetia in 2004. The current initiative with neutral passports is in line with the so-called strategy of the Government of Georgia regarding the "conflict areas" and the Law "On Occupied Territories". I think, such attempts of the Georgian authorities testify concealing responsibility for aggression against South Ossetia in August 2008 before the world community. To be more concrete about these "passports", I`d like to say, that the citizens of South Ossetia, who, in the vast majority, also have legally the Russian citizenship, have also passports of citizens of South Ossetia and the Russian Federation, with which they can travel around the world. There is no sense to get some strange "passports" of the state, which they associate with aggression, destruction, and attempts to destroy. Last year this topic has been repeatedly and clearly voiced by the media representatives of South Ossetia. And now there is no anyone striving to obtain these certificates. However, it is remarkable, that attempting to issue the neutral passports, the Georgian authorities have actually recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and the fact that they are not the "occupied territories of Georgia." According to the Georgian authorities, the "neutral" documents without state symbols, will allow their "happy" owners to move through Georgia, study at the Georgian universities, receive the Georgian pensions (I wonder, how these pensions provide for the Georgian retirees). At the same time their owners are not citizens of Georgia and have no voting rights. Consequently, the Georgian authorities have recognized, that people of South Ossetia are not citizens of Georgia even getting the neutral Georgian passports (that's about the size of it) and the territory of South Ossetia, where are living the aliens, who have created their own state and established the international relations in accordance with the international law; so they cannot be considered the "occupied Georgian territory." The authors of this project wanted to entice people, that these passports with the appendix of the travel document will give them visas to other countries. However, only two states have agreed to consider such documents. But nevertheless, who needs to replace the real documents with any illusory ones?
I think that this is another adventure. Instead of opening near the borders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia points for issuing these "neutral passports", it would be better, if the Georgian authorities from such clumsy propaganda steps went to establishment of real bridges of trust and good neighborly relations with South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
