Tskhinvali/Agency Caucasus – "We don’t need a Caucasus without Russia," said Eduard Kokoiti, President of South Ossetia, in reaction to the Western idea of North Ossetia separating from Russia to combine with South Ossetia to form one independent state.
In his talks to a group of officials from North Ossetia, Kokoiti spoke angrily of the emergence in North Ossetia of a group of people who championed the Western idea. "I would not even call them Ossetians. They are the traitors that hold us behind. And they don’t only stop us from making progress; they don’t only cause social disintegration among us; they try to cause the whole Caucasus to fall apart."
Kokoiti argued that those exponents of the Western idea of a united, independent Ossetia separated from Russia were heavily financed to advocate it: "Seventy percent of the amount of money that was formerly made available to Dimitri Sanakoyev, President of the Georgian administration of South Ossetia, has now become available to separate Ossetia from Russia. It is proposed that the United Ossetia should integrate with Europe, only on condition that it should separate from the Russian Federation. However, we are already part of Europe and its culture and we don’t want to leave Russia. They, however, think that Ossetia is the locus of today’s modern Europe while the sister North Caucasian people around us are the least developed ones of the Middle Ages. On the basis of this idea, they carry out their campaigns in Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria. Their aim is to establish ‘unacceptable relations’ between us and our North Caucasian sisters and brothers that we live in peace and friendly terms with. For the time being, most people tend not to pay as much attention as required to them; however, they are continuously ruining North Caucasus. We have to take normal, democratic precautions to reveal their truthful face. We are all sisters and brothers and we all need to live peacefully together within Russia. We don’t need a ‘free Caucasus’ without Russia."
RE/ÖZ/FT
