Print  
  
  Send  
  
  GEORGIAN 
 

Press Release

Council of Europe Office in Georgia

26, Kakabadzeebi Brothers street, 0115 Tbilisi, Georgia
Tel.: +995 32 91 38 70 / 71 / 72 / 73
Fax: +995 32 91 38 74
E-mail: informtbilisi@coe.int
www.coe.ge

  
   
15.11.11

PACE co-rapporteurs reject legitimacy of â€˜elections’ in the breakaway region of South Ossetia
Strasbourg, 15.11.2011 - The co-rapporteurs of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly’s (PACE) Monitoring Committee for Georgia, Michael Aastrup Jensen (Denmark, ALDE) and Kastriot Islami (Albania, SOC) today underscored that they did not recognize the legitimacy of the elections that were recently conducted in South Ossetia and reiterated their support for the territorial integrity of Georgia. 

"The unilateral declaration of independence of the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is illegitimate under international law and therefore no legal or constitutional basis for these elections exists" they declared.  

"In addition, none of the more than 20.000 ethnic Georgian IPDs that were forced from their houses as a result of the war were allowed to vote. Recognizing these elections as legal would be legitimizing the ethnic cleansing that took place in 2008. That is unacceptable to us" they concluded.

 

 

For more information see: www.coe.int  / www.coe.ge

 
A political organisation set up in 1949, the Council of Europe works to promote democracy and human rights continent-wide. It also develops common responses to social, cultural and legal challenges in its 47 member states.



Council of Europe Office in Georgia