Kokoity nationalizes real estate of some residents of South Ossetia

Authorities of South Ossetia have annulled real estate transaction in the Leningor District, concluded under the jurisdiction of Georgia. Tbilisi is stating persecution of ethnic Georgians.

The purchase-and-sale deals on real estate, struck in 1991-2008, when part of the Leningor District was under the jurisdiction of Georgia, have been declared null and void. The real estate property itself has been declared the property of South Ossetia. This is stated in the decree adopted on December 7 by President of South Ossetia Eduard Kokoity.

The signing of the decree was preceded by Mr Kokoity's meeting in Vladikavkaz with South-Ossetian refugees from the Leningor District. The refugees asked to set up legal conditions for their return home, where they had lived before the Georgian-Ossetian conflict, the "Echo of the Caucasus" reports.

The Georgian Foreign Ministry, in its turn, announced a new stage of ethnic cleansing of Georgians in South Ossetia, which "is manifested by expulsions from their homes, deprivation of property rights and rejections to return it."

According to the census held in Georgia in 2002, 7703 people lived in the Georgian part of the Leningor District.