TSKHINVALI. Nov 3 (Interfax) - Tskhinvali is discontent with the way the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) is dealing with the Georgian-Ossetian conflict but hopes that the OSCE observers will be able to make the right conclusions about the situation in the republic.
"The situation has been aggravating for a quite a long time and we repeatedly asked the OSCE and its member states to influence the Georgian authorities so as to defuse these tensions. Unfortunately, our requests remained unheard. Despite our requests OSCE observers did not inform the organization's senior officials about the current situation here," South Ossetia's Foreign Minister Murat Dzhioyev said at a meeting with members of the OSCE delegation led by OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities Knut Vollebaek, which has arrived in Tskhinvali.
OSCE officials were reassured that they will be given opportunity to monitor the processes occurring in South Ossetia, including the situation of national minorities, the foreign minister said.
South Ossetia has cooperated productively with the OSCE, including Vollebaek, since 1992, he said. "As the OSCE chairman-in-office at the time, you paid much attention to the Georgian-Ossetian conflict resolution," Dzhioyev said.
He also touched upon another issue equally important to South Ossetia. "Straight after the August 2008 events we proposed to the OSCE leaders to consider further cooperation with South Ossetia as a recognized state. And although this matter is still unresolved, we do not rule out that the OSCE could consider working with South Ossetia directly in the near future," Dzhioyev said.
For his part, Vollebaek said that as the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities he is taking a neutral position because he has an opportunity to work with states that are not recognized as sovereign nations by the OSCE member states. Contemporary conflicts are mainly based on interethnic contradictions, so my goal is to prevent them, primarily through involvement in the socio-political life of conflict zones, he said.