Situation around South Ossetia gets uncontrollable

The situation around South Ossetia is getting uncontrollable, director of the international institute of humanitarian-political research Vyacheslav Igrunov told a RIA Novosti press conference on Thursday.

According to him, the Georgian leadership believes that after the power takeover in Adzharia, South Ossetia will return under Tbilisi jurisdiction. Unlike Adzharia, the Georgian-Ossetian conflict is ethnic, the expert said. The early 1990s already saw military confrontation, which resulted in South Ossetia's actual separation from Georgia, he added.

Moreover, the current developments in Adzharia show that the Georgian leadership will be hardly able to persuade the South Ossetian heads that their life after the reunification will be calm, Mr. Igrunov noted.

Nevertheless, he did not rule out Tbilisi's victory in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict due to its U.S.-trained servicemen and consolidated society.

In this case Georgia will use the same method to solve the Abkhaz problem, Vyacheslav Igrunov said.

"Georgia will hardly win the conflict with Abkhazia, however, it is also possible," the expert proceeded. If it happens, Georgia will sleep on a volcano, he added.

North Caucasian nations will be involved in the armed conflict and it will lead to destabilization in the region as a whole, Mr. Igrunov concluded.