STATEMENT OF THE MILITARY COUNCIL OF THE REPUBLIC OF GEORGIA

At that time, when real ways of the political settlement of the conflict in Shida Kartli have become evident, certain forces of the Osssetian and of the Georgian ethnicity, interested in the destabilization of the situation, are making steps, directed to the breakdown of the peacekeeping process.

In the meanwhile, as it has become known, on the 19-th of January of this year in so called South-Ossetian Republic are going to hold a referendum on “reunion” of this original Georgian territory with Russia.

The Military Council of the Republic of Georgia evaluates this step as a rude attempt to violate the territorial integrity of sovereign state and ascribes all the responsibility for possible consequences to the destructive forces.

The Military Council of the Republic of Georgia reiterates its appeal to the stakeholders to immediately start negotiations with observation of the norms of the International Law.

Jaba Ioseliani, tengiz Kitovani.

Tbilisi, January 17, 1992.

(The newspaper “Svobodnaya Gruzya”, No 6, January 18, 1992)