Separatist Leader Says No Georgian Citizens in South Ossetia – Agency

Text of report by private Georgian news agency Kavkas-Press

Tskhinvali, 29 December: There are no Georgian citizens who could take part in the 5 January presidential election in South Ossetia, the de facto president of the self-proclaimed Republic of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoyty, has said in the capital of North Ossetia, Vladikavkaz.

“We have no citizens of Georgia living on the territory of South Ossetia. We could just as well take part in elections in say Armenia, Azerbaijan or some other country,” Kokoyty said. He said that South Ossetia had taken part in the election to the Russian State Duma, since 97 per cent of the republic’s residents have Russian citizenship.

“Taking account of the provocations that are being organized every day to divert the boiling point in Georgia in the direction of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, we are today ready for any turn of events, but we are doing all we can to preserve the peace, and to maintain the negotiation process,” Kokoyty said. He also expressed the hope that 2008 would be a year in which historical justice triumphed. He did not rule out that in 2008 “the centuries-old dream of every Ossetian will come true”. “I mean the unification of Ossetia,” he said.

In actual fact, there are almost as many Georgian citizens living in Georgian villages in South Ossetia as in the territories controlled by official Tbilisi. They have always taken part in Georgian parliamentary and presidential elections.

Originally published by Kavkas-Press, Tbilisi, in Russian 0652 29 Dec 07.

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring Central Asia. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.