MOSCOW, September 14 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Foreign Ministry urged Tbilisi in a statement Friday to give up the idea of a 'peace march' to Tskhinvali, the capital of Georgia's unrecognized republic of South Ossetia.
The ministry said the main aim of the march scheduled for September 18-19 during a congress of the Ossetian people is to provoke clashes with South Ossetian residents.
"Moscow is seriously concerned over reports that there are plans to hold in the next few days a so-called 'Peaceful March of Georgia's Ossetians to Tskhinvali.' This act attempts to present official Georgian propaganda as some kind of civic initiative, which it is not. Such contrivances in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone are extremely dangerous given the current situation," the ministry said.
"The Russian Foreign Ministry urgently calls on Tbilisi to stop playing irresponsible and criminally dangerous games. We believe that a strong warning should also be given by the international community," the statement said.
South Ossetia, which declared its independence from Georgia following a bloody conflict that left hundreds dead in the early 1990s, is a sensitive issue in relations between Georgia and Russia. Georgian authorities are seeking to bring it back under their control, and have accused Russia, which has peacekeepers in the area, of encouraging separatist elements.
Georgia has set up a working group comprising Georgian officials and members of South Ossetia's Tbilisi-installed 'alternative government,' and says its offer will be based on the autonomy model of South Tyrol, an ethnically-mixed German-Italian region.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Georgian march organizers could plan the following scenario: firstly, clashes will be provoked between the march participants and South Ossetian residents and peacekeepers, and then the Georgian-appointed head of the puppet South Ossetian administration, Dmitry Sanakoyev, will call on Tbilisi to establish order, after which "plans for the conflict's military resolution, long nurtured by the Georgian side, are launched."
The ministry said the situation recalls the events of 1989, "when a similar Tbilisi-organized 'peaceful' march to Tskhinvali turned into a blockade of the city lasting several months, resulting in thousands of regional residents being killed, wounded or ousted from their home villages."
The ministry said Russian peacekeepers would take all necessary steps "defined by Russia's peacekeeping and mediating mission, and their responsibility for the security of Russian nationals."
The dispute over South Ossetia began with a 1991-1992 armed conflict that followed the province's secession from newly-independent Georgia. South Ossetia's officials have repeatedly called for the republic's recognition by Moscow, with subsequent admission to the Russian Federation.
