MOSCOW. Aug 1 (Interfax) - Upon receiving an address from the parliament of South Ossetia on recognizing the genocide of South Ossetians by Georgia in 1920, the Russian State Duma Council will consider this at its nearest meeting, Duma Chairperson Vyacheslav Volodin said.
"The State Duma has taken an attentive approach toward the South Ossetian parliament's statement on recognizing the genocide of South Ossetians by Georgia in 1920. We will consider this address at the nearest meeting of the State Duma Council, which includes the Duma leadership, the heads of all political factions and the heads of the committees," Volodin told journalists on Thursday.
The South Ossetian parliament forwarded an address to the Russian leadership, the State Duma and the Federal Assembly to recognize the genocide of South Ossetians by Georgian nationalists in 1920, the South Ossetian parliament's website said on August 1.
The events of 1920 have still not been properly assessed, and the organizers and perpetrators of the genocide of Ossetians have never been held accountable, the address said.
After South Ossetia declared its right to self-determination and accession to Soviet Russia, the Georgian government sent its troops to crush South Ossetia in June 1920, the document says. "Georgian troops annihilated most of the populated areas in South Ossetia," the document says. "Several thousand people were killed, which, according to various estimates, amounted to 8% to 25% of their overall number," it said.
"Georgia again attempted ethnic cleansing of the Ossetian population in 1989-1992, and only Russia's intervention in 2008, when Georgia was forced to peace, prevented the absolute extermination of South Ossetia's population," it said.