Parliament Speaker announces abolition of administration created on territory of former South Ossetian autonomous district

Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili has announced that the ruling Georgian Dream party had decided to abolish the administration established on the territory of the former South Ossetian Autonomous District. Papuashvili confirmed that the initiative would be formally registered at today’s bureau session.

He said that the municipalities of Akhalgori, Kurta, Tigvi and Eredvi - created in 2006 “in full compliance with the Constitution” - will continue to operate. Papuashvili described the municipalities as “the only legitimately elected and functioning authorities in the [currently Rusian-controlled] Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) region,” representing the sole continuation of Georgia’s constitutional framework there.

Papuashvili said the administration was created through a presidential decree issued by former President Mikheil Saakashvili on 8 May 2007. He argued that the move, along with “non-constitutional elections held in the region” in November 2006, had indirectly legitimised separatist processes and amounted to a “grave betrayal” of Georgia’s state interests.

He said the 2007 decision “artificially restored the administrative borders of the South Ossetian Autonomous District, which had been abolished in 1990,” and claimed it later became one of the factors enabling the 2008 Russian military intervention and the occupation of the region.

According to Papuashvili, the steps were part of a “geopolitical game by external forces,” in which Georgia was assigned the role of a “sacrificial pawn.” He linked this to the constitutional lawsuit seeking to have the United National Movement declared unconstitutional.

He stressed that the planned changes did not concern the issue of Russia’s occupation of Tskhinvali, describing that dispute as one between “Georgia and Russia,” with the administrative structures having no influence on the matter.

Papuashvili also said that in a context where Georgia has long worked to strengthen its non-recognition policy, even the indirect use of the term “South Ossetia” by the former government amounted to a violation of the Constitution and national interests. “There is no ‘South Ossetia’ within Georgia’s legal or political system,” he said.