TO THE PRESIDIUM OF THE SUPREME COUNCIL OF THE NORTH OSSETIAN SOVIET SOCIALIST AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC

In response to your protest against the decision of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Georgia of 11 December 1990 on abolishing the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast, I find necessary to declare the following:

1. The decision of the Republic of Georgia is lawful from both, the moral-political and legal point of view. It is demonstrated in my report to the session of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Georgia and published in the newspaper “Zaria Vostoka” of 14 December of this year.

2. The decision on creating the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast was made in confrontation to the universally recognized legal norms, which proposed no right to the national minorities to creating the political autonomies. Moreover, South Ossetian AO was created on the Georgian land, including the villages and cities of Tskhinvali district, which was populated by Georgians - the only indigenous population of Shida Kartli.

3. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that despite unlawfulness of creation of South Ossetian AO the rights of Ossetian population had never been violated; moreover, they had all possibilities to develop in maximum capacity the national culture, economy and political self-governance at a level of local authorities. The same, by the way, did not apply to the population of the North Ossetian ASSR, and this fact had been underlined by your political leaders.

4. However, despite of all these advantages, which were developing in parallel of suppressing the rights of Georgian population, the group of separatists has focused on creating the independent republic in the region. This aim have been demonstrated in several decisions of the Oblast Council, which declared the establishment of the “sovereign republic”, including the decision on holding elections of so called Supreme Council of the said republic.

The leaders of the Oblast ignored the notifications of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Georgia regarding anti-constitutional character of those acts, which forced us to take decisive measures for maintaining the territorial integrity of the Republic of Georgia and restoring the historical justice.

Finally, we find necessary to draw your attention to the inadmissible tone of your protest where the factual circumstances of situation are roughly distorted. This is interference in the domestic affairs of our republic that may entail undesirable developments, aggravation of the situation and provoke the tension between our republics. If such happens, the whole responsibility will rest on the leaders of the North Ossetian ASSR.

Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Georgia Z. Gamsakhurdia

(Newspaper “Sovetskaya Abkhazia”# 249, 28 December 1990)