Tensions Defuse in South Ossetia, as Saakashvili Heads to PACE

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili left for Strasbourg on Tuesday to address the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on January 26 over Tbilisi’s proposal regarding the resolution of the conflict in breakaway South Ossetia. Meanwhile, tensions were defused in the South Ossetian conflict zone after the conflicting sides exchanged hostages late on January 24.

Two days before his planned speech at the PACE session, Mikheil Saakashvili unveiled some of the details over South Ossetia’s status whithin the proposal at a news conference late on January 24. He said that the Georgian authorities are ready to offer a “wider status to the former autonomous district of South Ossetia” which will guarantee the Ossetian population’s political rights in Georgia.
 
Particularly, Saakashvili said that Tbilisi’s proposal envisages guaranteed representation of South Ossetians in Georgia’s national Parliament and government, as well as in the judiciary system; certain economic benefits and cultural and language autonomy.
 
“However, defense, border control, public order and human rights – these are the prerogatives of Georgia’s central authorities,” President Mikheil Saakashvili said.
 
“The price, which we pay for peace, envisages granting particular political rights to South Ossetia. We are talking about 1% of our population, but this 1% is a very important part of our population. We would like these people to return to a united Georgian state. We are ready to ensure that they [Ossetians] are not oppressed in Georgia,” Saakashvili said.
 
However, the South Ossetian side has already expressed skepticism towards Tbilisi’s proposal. 

South Ossetia’s Parliament appealed the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe on January 24 through a statement announcing that “Georgia’s federal arrangement will be another work of fiction.”
 
“The South Ossetian Parliament [on the eve of Saakashvili’s address] calls on the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to refrain from making any decisions regarding South Ossetia’s status, since any decisions accepted without the participation of the Ossetian side may aggravate the public-political situation,” the appeal reads.
 
Last December, President Saakashvili instructed the government to develop peace concepts for Abkhazia and South Ossetia in close cooperation with civil society organizations. According to him, relying on the principles of a “federal arrangement”, Tbilisi will offer wider autonomy to the Abkhaz and South Ossetian sides.
 
A group of experts from the Venice Commission, which is the Council of Europe (CoE) advisory body on constitutional issues, will visit Tbilisi on January 26-27 to help the Georgian authorities develop a legal document on the status of breakaway South Ossetia. 

Meanwhile, sporadic tensions continue to break out in the conflict zone. The most recent one, which involved a series of hostage-takings on both sides, was resolved late on January 24 when the two sides exchanged hostages.

This exchange of hostages was made possible only after an agreement was reached at a specially convened session of the quadripartite Joint Control Commission (JCC) on January 24.  The session involved representatives from the Georgian, Russian, South Ossetian and North Ossetian side.

As a result, the Ossetian side released Lado Chalauri, chief of police in the village of Eredvi, which is in the conflict zone, who was kidnapped on January 20. In response, on January 22, the Georgian side released a group of ethnic Ossetians who were being detained by Lado Chalauri’s relatives and co-villagers.

The South Ossetian side was insisting on the release of Oleg Pukhaev, an Ossetian who was arrested by the Georgian police on January 19 and is suspected of killing two persons last February. But the Georgian side refused this demand.

As a compromise, Tbilisi agreed to transfer Oleg Pukhaev to the a detention cell of the Joint Peacekeeping Troops in South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali. The two sides also agreed to jointly investigate the murder case which Pukhaev is allegedly involved in.