Statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of South Ossetia with regard to
the situation on the border with Georgia
Four years after the armed aggression of Georgia against South Ossetia in August 2008 the situation in the region is still tense and is characterized by the intention of the Georgian leadership to carry out the large-scale provocations. Georgian authorities, despite the impact of August 2008, are not going to leave their revanchist sentiments.
In the territory of Georgia, which is adjacent to the border of South Ossetia and belongs to the zone of responsibility of the EU mission military observers, there is a boosting of the Georgian military presence, including armored vehicles andmultiple launch rocket systems. One can observe the newly built fortifications and almost all border settlements formed warehouses for storage of weapons. It is also observed activation of the Georgian intelligence services, transferring of the armed police posts several hundred meters closer to the border of South Ossetia, as it happened in Zardiantkari.
It has caused anxiety that the Georgian leadership is deliberately escalating the situation to distract its people from socio-political problems in Georgia before the forthcoming parliamentary elections. Recently, in order to strengthen their domestic position before the parliamentary elections, the local media has been reinforcing the campaign, which spins the myth of the Russian threat. It is possible that evaluating the emerging pre-election situation, President Saakashvili is going to create the conditions for cancellation of parliamentary elections and announcing the emergency ruling.
Increasingly official Tbilisi instead of the real help feeds people with promises to return the allegedly occupied territories. President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili arrived in the Georgian village, bordering on South Ossetia on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the August aggression and promised its residents: "We will unite our country and will certainly get back our land by any means."
Such actions can only be viewed as provocative, fraught with new destabilization.
Tskhinval, 20 September 2012
