MOSCOW. Nov 14 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia accused Georgia on Tuesday of having pursued "unilateral action" for the past "two to three years aimed at undermining" negotiations for the settlement of the conflict with the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
"The way the Georgian leadership has been behaving for the past two to three years, rejecting all earlier agreements, going back on its own commitments to sit down at the same negotiating table with the South Ossetian leadership and work out a joint plan of settlement, turning down a proposal by the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] to sign with South Ossetia a document on the non-use of force and on purely peaceful methods of dealing with all problems, constant provocations against Russian peacekeepers in the conflict zone - all this has been unilateral actions aimed at undermining existing formats of negotiations, and undermining existing peacekeeping mechanisms," Lavrov said at a session of the Council of Europe Congress of Local and Regional Authorities in Moscow.
He was commenting on a recent independence referendum in South Ossetia.
"When the center [the Georgian leadership] does not want to hold a normal dialogue with a part of its own society, there apparently emerge definite sentiments in that society. One form in which these sentiments have manifested themselves was the referendum that you mentioned," he said.
"We have stressed more than once that resuming normal dialogue on the political solution of all problems that arise is key to normalizing the situation both around and within Georgia," Lavrov said.
"There appear to be plans [by Georgia] to prepare an opportunity for an armed resolution" of its conflicts with South Ossetia and its other breakaway region, Abkhazia.