A new stage of an armed conflict between Georgians and Ossetians would be utter light-mindedness and political shortsightedness, head of the Ossetian Diaspora in France Teresa Naskidashvili told RIA Novosti.
Together with her husband Tomas Naskidashvili who represents the Georgian Diaspora in France, she came to North Ossetian capital Vladikavkaz to celebrate the city's 220th anniversary and the 230th anniversary of North Ossetia's voluntary accession to the Russian Empire.
According to the Naskidashvilis, "it would be an insult to both Georgians and Ossetians to let the disaster of 1992, when thousands of people on both sides were killed and injured, and scores more became refugees, happen again. Thoughtful negotiations are the only way out to settle any disputes."
"As the events that took place in [South Ossetian capital] Tskhinvali 12 years ago have shown, force can suppress disputes for a while but does not affect the nature of the dispute," Tomas Naskidashvili said.
The situation around two breakaway Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was aggravated as Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili made it clear that now that the Ajarian problem was solved (Ajarian leader Aslan Abashidze, defeated in a conflict with Saakashvili and having failed to find political clout in Moscow, was forced to leave the republic aboard Secretary of Russia's Security Council Igor Ivanov's airplane), the next step would be to have "prodigal daughters" - Abkhazia and South Ossetia - come back to their mother Georgia. Although the Georgian President aired no belligerent intentions, the Abkhaz and South Ossetian people are suspicious as to what means he might choose.
The leadership of both unrecognized republics have gone extra mile in all years of their self-proclaimed independence to make sure the return would be as hard as it could: the locals assumed Russian citizenship in their thousands, Abkhaz and South Ossetian parliaments have repeatedly applied to the Russian parliament to let them join the Russian Federation (Abkhazia wanted a status of an associate region, while South Ossetia has applied for full Russian jurisdiction). Moscow's stance has been always the same - the problem has to be solved without inflicting any damage to Georgia's territorial integrity.
