TSKHINVALI. Aug 7 (Interfax-AVN) - The self-proclaimed republic of South Ossetia is about to complete the establishment of a professional army that was launched earlier this year on President Eduard Kokoity's instructions, Defense Minister Bala Bestauty said on Thursday.
"The army is not expected to number over 6,000 personnel," Bestauty told Interfax-Military News Agency.
"We will rely on those who have served with the Ossetian peacekeeping battalion of the Mixed Peacekeeping Forces in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone," the minister said.
"South Ossetia's military doctrine is purely defensive," he noted.
"Under the circumstances of the upcoming parliamentary elections in Georgia scheduled for November, we cannot rule out the emergence of revanchist trends against South Ossetia and attempts to settle the Georgian-Ossetian problem by force. That is why we must be ready for any scenarios," Bestauty said.
At the same time, "working and business-like relations are maintained with the Russian and Georgian battalions" of the Mixed Peacekeeping Forces which were deployed in the conflict zone in 1992, he noted.
The minister refuted Georgian claims that South Ossetia receives heavy ordnance from Russia.
"South Ossetia does not violate any agreements regulating the number of heavy armored vehicles and artillery pieces," he concluded.