MOSCOW, March 23 (RIA Novosti, Andrei Malyshkin) - The president of the self-proclaimed republic of South Ossetia in Georgia has ordered his justice and foreign ministries to prepare legal documents for Russia's highest constitutional body in its bid to join the country, a presidential aide said Thursday.
"As far as I know, the president of South Ossetia ordered the republic's justice and foreign ministries to start preparing documents on this issue," said Dmitry Medoyev, the South Ossetian presidential envoy to Russia.
President Eduard Kokoity said Wednesday the breakaway Georgian region would ask Russia's Constitutional Court to let it join the Russian Federation and would present historical documents to back its claim.
"We intend to file an application with the Russian Constitutional Court," he said. "There is a document that proves that a united Ossetia was part of the Russian Empire in 1774, whereas there are no documents to prove that the southern part of Ossetia broke away from the Russian Empire or from the Russian Federation. Why should we ask to join Russia if we never [officially] left it?"
Medoyev said the package of documents would be an official request to the Constitutional Court with all the necessary historical and archival records.
"The people of South Ossetia have a full historical right to live together with the brotherly people of North Ossetia [a Russian republic], from whom they were forcibly separated in Soviet times," he said. "There is not a single document stating that South Ossetia withdrew from Russia, and the Constitutional Court should decide whether there is a precedent."
South Ossetia and another self-proclaimed republic, Abkhazia, declared independence from Georgia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, bringing bloody conflicts to the region. Russia mediated ceasefire agreements between the sides, and Russian peacekeepers have been deployed in the conflict zones ever since.
Georgia, which is seeking to bring the regions back under its control, has accused Russia of siding with separatists and stalling the peace process. Late last year, the country's new Western-leaning government demanded that Russian troops be pulled out of the conflict zones. Russia said this could trigger a new civil war, as the breakaway regions have rejected the policy pursued by Georgia.
Ninety-five per cent of South Ossetian residents reportedly hold Russian citizenship. The region wants to rejoin North Ossetia, although the two were separate administrative entities in the Soviet era and were separated further after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
