South Ossetia, citing Kosovo precedent, seeks recognition of its independence
South Ossetia asked on Wednesday the UN, the EU states and Russia to recognize its independence from Georgia following the West’s support for Kosovo’s secession
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Thursday, March 06, 2008
"The Kosovo precedent has driven us to more actively seek our rights," the cabinet of South Ossetia's leader, Eduard Kokoity, said.
"Considering the precedent created by the arguments that served as basis for the declaration of Kosovo's independence -- which was virtually created by the European Union -- it says that Kosovo should be recognized due to the impossibility of coexistence between Kosovo and Serbia within the same state," Kokoity said. "So we also want to announce that future coexistence between South Ossetia and Georgia within the same state is impossible."
The region's assembly has passed a resolution which says Kosovo's independence had created a precedent which showed that regions desiring sovereignty should be recognised by the international community.
"The 'Kosovo precedent' is a convincing confirmation that the resolution of regional conflicts is based not only on the principle of state's territorial integrity," the region's assembly said in a statement.
"The 17-year period of South Ossetia's independence confirms its viability and demands only the legitimisation of her sovereignty in accordance with the charter of the United Nations."
Almost all the 50,000 people in the region hold Russian passports, transactions are in roubles, and South Ossetia has close ethnic ties to North Ossetia, a neighbouring Russian region.
Tbilisi has vowed to restore its control there and the region, but voters in South Ossetia have repeatedly backed the split.
Reacting to South Ossetian demand, US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said "it is not going to happen".
"I don't want to try to judge the motives, but we've been very clear that Kosovo is sui generis and that that is because of the special circumstances out of which the breakup of Yugoslavia came", Rice said.
The US has been a mastermind of Kosovo's secession from Serbia.
Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Azerbaijan's rebel Nagorno-Karabakh region and Transdniestria, which split from Moldova, declared independence in the 1990s but have not received international recognition - and they call the West's position a "hypocrisy".
