“It's been thirteen years since the beginning of the military aggression of the M.N. Saakashvili's regime against the people of South Ossetia and Russian peacekeepers from the Joint Peacekeeping Forces in the zone of the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict. As we all remember, on the night of August 7-8, 2008, by order of the then President of Georgia, the armed forces of this country carried out a massive shelling of settlements in South Ossetia, after which they began an offensive operation with the support of tanks and aircraft. The deliberate nature of M.N. Saakashvili's well-planned actions was recorded in the report issued in 2009 by the International Commission for Investigation of the Causes of the Conflict in the Caucasus, created under the auspices of the European Union, ” the Russian diplomat recalled.
Russia saved the people of South Ossetia from destruction. At first it stopped the Georgian invasion by conducting an operation to force the aggressor to peace, and then ensured the safety of the citizens of South Ossetia, as well as Abkhazia, recognizing both republics as sovereign independent states on August 26, 2008.
“At present, Russia is successfully developing allied cooperation with the Republic of Abkhazia and the Republic of South Ossetia in various fields. It is based on a solid legal framework, consisting of a number of bilateral interstate and interdepartmental treaties and agreements, ” Bikantov said.
According to the diplomat, Russian-Abkhazian and Russian-South Ossetian cooperation has long become a stabilizing factor in the South Caucasus.
“The constructive participation of our countries in the International Geneva Discussions on Security and Stability in Transcaucasia is aimed at consolidating the geopolitical realities that have developed in the region. We see the main task of this dialogue format as concluding a legally binding agreement on the non-use of force between Georgia, on the one hand, and Abkhazia and South Ossetia, on the other. This measure is intended to become a reliable guarantee against the non-repetition of Georgian military adventures. The urgency of adopting such a document is growing against the backdrop of the course pursued by the official Tbilisi towards accelerated Euro-Atlantic integration, as well as the involvement of this country into the plans of the United States and NATO to “contain” Moscow, ” Deputy Head of the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed.
He also noted that Russia has never equated the criminal regime of M.N. Saakashvili and the people of Georgia.
“We are ready to restore relations between our states if the Georgian side is ready for this. We hope that common sense will prevail in Tbilisi, and our Georgian partners will begin to build relations with neighbors, taking into account the balance of interests. This fully applies to the external "curators" of Tbilisi. It is high time for them to abandon the unpromising line of "reintegration" of Abkhazia and South Ossetia into Georgia. Instead of churning out theses divorced from reality, as was the case in the recent joint statement of a number of Western countries following the meeting of the UN Security Council in connection with the next anniversary of the events of August 2008, they should encourage Tbilisi to establish and maintain an equal and mutually respectful dialogue with Sukhum and Tskhinval, " Bikantov said.