Saakashvili Comments on S.Ossetia

President Saakashvili said that parliamentary elections in breakaway South Ossetia, which he described as Russia’s “military camp,” did not deserve much attention.

“It is so cynical and grotesque to hold elections in a military stronghold and military camp that, I think, we will not pay attention to it,” he said in a televised comments aired by Rustavi 2 TV on June 2.

He also said that his predecessor, Eduard Shevardnadze, had a chance to negotiate with previous leadership of the breakaway South Ossetia, but he failed. 

“[South Ossetian leader Eduard] Kokoity was sent [to South Ossetia] by FSB [Russia’s Federal Security Service]. Shevardnadze failed to talk with [Ludvig] Chibirov [Kokoity’s predecessor], who was requesting him to talk and it was really possible to talk at that time. But it had no sense to talk with Kokoity, because we tried everything and actually, this man had an instruction that was implemented later. He arrived in 2001 with this instruction and he made no secret about the fact that he wanted this region to be under Russia’s control. He [Kokoity] is a FSB agent of a low level. He was simply selected out of several racketeers in Russia. Therefore, it was impossible to speak about any serious negotiations with him during these years. There chance for that but it was lost [when the breakaway region was led by Ludvig Chibirov]. Later, although this bandit [referring to Kokoity] was brought there; but it turned out that the society itself was ready to talk with the Georgian government – and then Dima [Dimitri] Sanakoev [head of South Ossetian provisional administration] and others emerged; some movements started in that direction, but Moscow could not tolerate it. They hurried up and started to carry out major strikes with the held of this region [South Ossetia] against any logic,” Saakashvili said. 

“Of course, Tbilisi was their major target. The second major target was Abkhazia,” he continued. “They were not interested in Tskhinvali, I know it for sure, I have heard about it from the Russian leadership, but it was used as a pretext.”

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