Representative of the UN Secretary General stands for return of refugees to South Ossetia

All the internally displaced persons from South Ossetia, irrespective of nationality and time of their violent eviction, shall have the right to return to their homeland; while power structures of both parties in conflict shall help them in this return. This was stated by Walter Kelin, representative of the UN Secretary General for the rights of internally displaced persons.

Let us remind you that Walter Kelin paid a visit on November 5-6 to the South-Ossetian conflict zone and got acquainted with the problems of refugees after the conflicts of early 1990s and after last year's August war.

After his travel across South Ossetia, Mr Kelin published his report, where he called both parties of the conflict to render assistance in return of all refugees, irrespective of places of their present residence, in the pragmatic way, as reported by the "Georgia Online" Agency.

The high-ranking UN official has called to set up a special mechanism with attraction of international experts intended for settling problems with the property abandoned by refugees and other practical issues of the rights of internally displaced persons, without politicizing them.

In this context he addressed the Georgian and South-Ossetian parties to use the mechanism of Geneva negotiations on Transcaucasia for discussing such practical steps and opportunities of providing a broader access for international humanitarian help for those who remained without roof over head.