MOSCOW, August 6 (Itar-Tass) - Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with Georgia’s Rustavi-2 television channel on Tuesday that the situation with South Ossetia and Abkhazia had not been fully settled.
“That is creating problems for all the parties in conflict,” Medvedev told Georgian journalists.
“This is a problem for Russia, Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia because the situation has not been settled to the end,” the Russian prime minister said. “This is certainly a problem. I would have been dishonest had I said otherwise,” he added.
Medvedev emphasized that the question was in how the actions taken by Russia to counteract Georgia’s aggression were classified. Some observers consider the Russian troops to be occupational. But Russia acted in compliance with article 51 of the United Nations Charter and used its right to self-defense after its peacekeepers had been attacked and people had died.
Medvedev added that the Russian assessment of those events remained unchanged. “It is based on common principles of international law and the United Nations Charter such as the right to self-defense that can be applied in the territory of other countries,” Medvedev said. “Unfortunately, human history has seen such things happen,” the prime minister stressed.
He emphasized that the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan for the settlement of the military conflict in Georgia in August 2008 was later accepted in various forms by the Georgian leadership. Medvedev explained a clause under which Russia pledged to withdraw its troops to the pre-war positions.
“They have left the Georgian territory; there are no troops on the Georgian territory now and in this sense all the commitments have been met,” Medvedev said in conclusion.
However, he explained that the current presence of Russian troops in the territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was based on international agreements for the provision of their security.