TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF GEORGIA Z. K. GAMSAKHURDIA

Honorable president!

Your Address to us published in the newspaper “Svobodnaya Gruzia” of 26 July of this year has emerged the controversial feelings. On the one hand it is crystal clear that the peoples of North Ossetia and Georgia have got tired from the procrastinated tragic conflict in South Ossetia. The people expect from their leaders the attempts to stabilize the situation and create the environment for the peaceful work. This goal may be achieved only through refraining from the forcible confrontation and regulating the conflict through the negotiations on the basis of strict observance of the norms of the Constitution and the international law. This is the only true way.

On the other hand, You insist on restoring the good-neighborly relations, but at the same time you try to dictate to the sovereign republic your conditions; You just put forward ultimatums. Namely, it is rather ambiguous when you ask to change the name of our republic. This is the rough intervention in the affairs of the sovereign republic, and You always stand against it. Only the people of North Ossetia, and nobody else, shall decide how to name our republic.

Furthermore, while speaking about the developments in South Ossetia you either lie – pretending that you know nothing about the real situation, or you intentionally mislead your people, the peoples of the USSR and the international community. Don’t you remember that in November 1989 they were not Ossetians who advanced “crusade” against the Georgian city, but twenty thousand boeviks laid by you dashed to the center of South Ossetia – Tskhinvali. This action served as the prologue to the further bloody developments. Therefore, the allegation about Ossetians’ provoking the acceleration of the conflict is absolutely unacceptable. Such situations shall be considered with a grate care, based on the realities. But the reality proves that the military actions took place on the territory of South Ossetia.

You often refer to the history, manipulate the facts, and ignore the studies of the eminent scholars, including the Georgian ones, who brought out clearly, that Ossetians’ ancestors had lived on the territory of South Ossetia already in the 7^th century BC. Look the book of Academician G.A. Melikishvili “On the History of the Ancient Georgia” published in Tbilisi in 1959. If You really strive to restore the historical truth, then You should realize that the districts and settlements forcibly left by Ossetians had been populated by them for many centuries. Every time Georgia faced the difficulties, Ossetians used to come and help the Georgian people. They shared with them the troubles and happiness. And what kind of interpretation could be given to the fact that today, after the earthquake, the economic blockade of South Ossetia has not been removed?! We understand the aspiration of Georgian people towards gaining the state sovereignty. But we fail to understand why they deprive the other nations from this right.

The conflict encouraged the migration of tens of thousand Ossetians from South Ossetia and Georgian districts to our republic. The large number of refugees has seriously complicated the situation in the republic. And You make a big mistake if You think that the developments in South Ossetia and the factual genocide of Ossetians in Georgia may not touch the interests of North Ossetia.

In this difficult time the situation in South Ossetia shall be normalized only through the dialogue and negotiations, without any prior conditions or ultimatums. And we have to find together the ways to move away the suspicious and the fear of the new clashes.

We have to consider such hot problems, as the termination of persecution of the Ossetian people, creation of conditions for the return of refugees to the places of their permanent residence, compensation of material damage to them, restoration of the autonomous oblast of South Ossetia, including all of its structural authorities.

In Your Address there are the words that are acceptable to me and my friends at the Government of North Ossetian SSR: “in case of mutually agreed reasonable actions we will move away the confrontation and conflict through the joint efforts”. The leaders of both Republics shall follow this way.

Chairman of the Supreme Council

of North Ossetian Soviet Socialist Republic A. Galazov

(Newspaper “Sovetskaya Osetia”, #97, 13 August 1991)