Tskhinvali Blames Tbilisi’s ‘Absurd Policy’ For Water Shortage

Georgia wants Tskhinvali to recognize the Tbilisi-loyal South Ossetian provisional administration in exchange for resolving the water shortage problem in the breakaway region’s capital, the separatist South Ossetian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on June 4.

“This is an absurd and absolutely inadmissible demand,” the statement posted on the South Ossetian Press and Information Committee’s web-site reads.

The Russian Foreign Ministry also called on Tbilisi last week to stop using the water shortage problem for its “political games.”

The South Ossetian side confirmed on June 4 that it had cut the supply of water, used for crop irrigation, to the Georgian villages of the Gori District; but it has denied suspending potable water supplies.

The South Ossetian side claims that Tbilisi is preventing Ossetian workers from repairing the damaged pipeline in the Georgian-controlled villages to the north of Tskhinvali. As a result of this damage, which was caused initially by holes punched into the old pipeline for crop irrigation, and then exacerbated by storm-damage which caused it to break, Tskhinvali has been without potable water for more than a week.

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