S.Ossetia Rejects Tbilisi’s Draft Law on Restitution

Deputy Chairman of the breakaway South Ossetian government Boris Chochiev criticized Tbilisi’s draft law on restitution as “one more PR campaign” of the Georgian authorities, which will fail to become a relief for the refugees and internally displaced persons.

However, Chochiev did not specify exactly which provisions of the draft law are unacceptable for Tskhinvali.

Boris Chochiev made these remarks during the talks with Naveed Hussain, representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to Georgia on April 19 in Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian Press and Information Committee reported.

“The issue of refugees still remains the key problem… People expected that a law on restitution would have been adopted in Georgia. Instead of an effective law, we see one more advertisement… This [draft law] gives refugees no ground for hope,” the South Ossetian Press and Information Committee quoted Chochiev as saying.

Chochiev also noted that “the law will not work without settlement of the Georgian-Ossetian relations, confidence building and expression of good will by the Georgian side.”

Georgia’s draft law on property restitution to the victims of the South Ossetian conflict was developed by the Georgian Justice Ministry and hailed by the Council of Europe’s (CoE) Venice Commission – the advisory body for constitutional issues – on March 19.

Boris Chochiev, who is also a co-chairman of the Joint Control Commission (JCC), said that a JCC session will be held in late April in Tskhinvali with the participation of the representatives of the UNHCR.

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