MOSCOW, March 30. /TASS/. A referendum on South Ossetia’s accession to Russia can be organized in four to six weeks, judging by international practices, a senior Russian lawmaker said on Wednesday.
"Of course, it depends on South Ossetia’s legislation. Naturally, I cannot say anything for them - I don’t know South Ossetia’s laws well enough, but international practices show that, say, four to six weeks are enough to organize and hold a referendum observing all the norms, principles, approaches, and criteria used worldwide," Andrey Klimov, deputy chairman of the international committee of Russia’s Federation Council (upper parliament house), said in an interview with the Moskva-24 television channel.
No legal barriers
There are no legal barriers for launching the procedure of South Ossetia’s accession to Russia, they key condition is the expression of will of this country’s citizens, Klmov said.
"We have all legal mechanisms to launch this process. The main conditions is the expression of will of South Ossetia’s citizens confirmed in a referendum," he told TASS.
According to Klimov, the political statement of South Ossetia’s president must be confirmed by the referendum results. "Once this step is made, there are no legal barriers for that," he noted.
He stressed that South Ossetia’s accession to Russia is in the interests of the Ossetian people "who were once divided against their will." "This part of the Ossetian people found themselves in Georgia whereas the other part remained within Russia. It is a single nation having common religion and history," he added.
South Ossetian President Anatoly Bibilov said earlier on Wednesday that his country will take legal steps toward joining Russia in the near future. His press secretary Dina Gassiyeva told TASS that the appropriate procedures will be finalized after the presidential elections on April 10.