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Russia to help South Ossetia protect its sovereignty — Lavrov

Moscow respects the sovereignty of South Ossetia, says the top diplomat

SOCHI, October 16. /TASS/. Russia will respect the sovereignty of South Ossetia and support the republic in protecting its independence, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a panel discussion dubbed Global Politics and Its Agenda: How to Protect The World, held on the sidelines of the World Festival of Youth and Students.

"We recognized South Ossetia as an independent state," the diplomat stressed. "Russian peacekeepers and the Russian army were directly involved in preventing the then Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili from resolving the so-called ‘territorial dispute’ by force, violating the decisions made by the OSCE and ignoring the fact that Russian and Ossetian peacekeepers were deployed there, along with Georgian ones, though they had been pulled out of the area several hours before the aggression started," the Russian top diplomat noted.

"We will respect the sovereignty of South Ossetia in every possible way and provide support in protecting it through our close allied ties," Lavrov emphasized.