MOSCOW, April 7 (RIA Novosti) - A Russian official Friday accused a mission of the world's largest regional security organization on the longstanding conflict between Georgia and its breakaway republic of South Ossetia of bias.
Speaking at a meeting of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna, Russia's OSCE representative Alexei Borodavkin said the organization's biased attitude toward the situation in the region was not conducive to settling the conflict.
"Georgia's violations and provocations are not properly reported or recognized at all," Borodavkin said. "The actions of South Ossetians are interpreted in a negative key.... All of this certainly does not allow for the normalization of the situation in the conflict zone."
He also accused the organization of holding the same attitude toward the presence of Russian peacekeepers in the region.
In February, the Georgian parliament adopted a resolution demanding the expulsion of Russian peacekeeping troops from South Ossetia and the deployment of an international contingent there. The Joint Control Commission for the Georgian-South Ossetian Conflict Resolution has urged Georgia not to undermine the existing peacekeeping format.
A bloody conflict broke out in 1991 after South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia mediated ceasefire agreements between the sides, and Russian peacekeepers have been deployed in the conflict zones ever since. The South Ossetian authorities want to rejoin North Ossetia, although the two regions were separate administrative entities in the Soviet era and were separated further after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
