Demonstrators demand deporting OSCE Mission head

A meeting against the position of the OSCE in conditions of aggravation of the situation in South Ossetia has been conducted in front of the OSCE Mission to Tskhinvali today. Some demonstrators emphasized in their statements the unacceptability of Mission head Gancho Ganchev staying in Tskhinvali, as the meeting thought he took up a pro-Georgian attitude in those circumstances.

South Ossetia's Foreign Minister Murat Jioev has commented on this event as follows: "The operation of the OSCE definitely causes everyone's discontent here. Recently, when the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly made a statement on the situation in South Ossetia, it showed that the OSCE leadership had only one-sided information proceeding from the Georgian side and that the OSCE Mission did not provide their leadership and OSCE member states with objective information."

The OSCE Mission has cooperated with the South Ossetian government since December 1993 when the OSCE and the republic's Supreme Soviet headed by Torez Kulumbekov signed a Memorandum of Mutual Understanding. However, Georgia allowed the Mission to open a permanent office in Tskhinvali only in 1996 under President Chibirov. This caused negative response on the part of the opposition, because the OSCE Mission to Tskhinvali is no more than a field office of this organization in Georgia.