Ethnic Ossetians To Have Voice In South Ossetia Status-OSCE

http://www.easybourse.com/bourse-actualite/marches/ethnic-ossetians-to-have-voice-in-south-ossetia-status-osce-506493

Sunday August 17th, 2008 / 11h59

MOSCOW (AFP)--The ethnic-Ossetians who inhabit the rebel Georgian province of South Ossetia will have a say in decisions about the region's future status, a top European security official said Sunday.
"I made it very clear that the people who live in South Ossetia will have a say in what happens in the country," Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Secretary General Marc Perrin de Brichambaut told AFP by telephone from the Russian city of Vladikavkaz.
"That is normal. But this is part of a much broader process" that would also involve Georgia, Russia and other parties in the conflict over South Ossetia and another breakaway Georgian region, Abkhazia, he said.
Ossetians took control of most of Georgia's South Ossetia region in the early 1990s and have since received substantial Russian support.
Georgia has refused to relinquish its claim to the territory and last week attempted to seize back control, before being heavily defeated in a Russian invasion.
Russian news agencies separately quoted Perrin de Brichambaut as saying earlier that the people of Russian-backed South Ossetia would determine the future of the province, suggesting they would have the decisive voice.
An aide traveling with Perrin de Brichambaut said the assertion had been taken out of a context that included "a whole complex of issues" involved in any plan for settling the conflict over the rebel region.
The aide, Mikhail Evstafiev, said the OSCE was proposing to increase the number of its observers in the area from the current eight to 100.
"I believe this got support from Russia," Evstafiev said.
Perrin de Brichambaut said talks between OSCE and Russian officials on boosting international observers in South Ossetia were "quite encouraging" so far and added he expected more details on numbers in the coming days.