ROSTOV-ON-DON, September 10 (RIA Novosti) - A London-based academic said Wednesday that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe had specific data that hostilities would start in South Ossetia, but made no attempt to prevent them.
"I was in the region two weeks before the conflict started and read reports by military observers from the OSCE. It was written in them that war was absolutely unavoidable," said Oksana Antonenko, the Russia and Eurasia programs director at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, and a participant of the Valdai International Discussion Club.
She said the documents said the Georgian army was getting ready for a war, and the OSCE knew it. She questioned the role of the organization.
"We just don't need the OSCE," she said. "The OSCE is the main party to blame for the current crisis."
Russia recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia on August 26, two weeks after it had concluded its operation "to force Georgia to peace." The operation came in response to an attack by Georgian forces on breakaway South Ossetia on August 8.
Western nations have strongly criticized Russia for its "disproportionate" response to Georgia's attack and the recognition of Georgia's breakaway provinces, but Nicaragua also recognized the republics' independence.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia broke away from Georgia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Georgia has long sought to bring the breakaway regions back under its control, while accusing Russia of trying to annex the republics.
