If it weren’t for Saakashvili, Georgians and Ossetians could reconcile long ago: Zatulin

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“Nobody in Russia will deal with an ‘alternative president’ of South Ossetia,” Russian MP Konstantin Zatulin stated during a press conference at the International Press Center in Tskhinvali.

Responding a REGNUM correspondent’s question on how an entity named Lower South Ossetia with an alternative president would influence the future of South Ossetian state, Zatulin said that “such an entity created by Tbilisi geographers will be able to exist neither in juridical nor in political field.” “If Georgians did not treat seriously the South Ossetian referendum and presidential election, they would not conduct the ‘alternative elections’.” I suppose that Georgia is holding the ‘alternative elections’ exclusively in the Eredvi village, for the press. They are just virtual elections." According to Zatulin, if some young people believe that they could build their future forgetting about their past, they are wrong. “One should be more modest because peoples lived before Saakashvili, and they must live now. If it weren’t for the Georgian leadership, Georgians and Ossetians could make peace long ago,” the MP said.