(17 Aug 2008)
1. Wide shot of news conference
2. Reporters
3. SOUNDBITE: (English) Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe Secretary General:
"I believe everything that contributes to a return to a normal situation will be perceived as something which allows the process of reconstruction and reconciliation to start very quickly. But of course this is a facilitating factor in the diplomatic process which has to take place."
5. Reporters
6. SOUNDBITE: (English) Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe Secretary General:
"The political future of South Ossetia, by definition, is for the South Ossetians to determine. And they live in a difficult context, the have to take into account the facts of history, the facts of geography, the realities of today's world. My contacts with the senior North Ossetian authorities, which I think I have a very strong relationship with the South Ossetian authorities, have indicated to me that this process of assessment, of reflection, is ongoing and that they have not, at this stage, reached any conclusions."
7. Wide shot of news conference
STORYLINE:
The Secretary General of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said in Russia on Sunday that "the political future of South Ossetia, by definition, is for the South Ossetians to determine."
Marc Perrin de Brichambaut was speaking in Valdikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, which lies inside Russia on the other side of the border to Georgia's South Ossetia.
"They live in a difficult context, the have to take into account the facts of history, the facts of geography, the realities of today's world," he added.
As de Brichambaut spoke Russian military authorities were issuing a flurry of conflicting reports about whether Russian troops had begun to pull out of South Ossetia, one of Georgia's two separatist provinces.
Western pressure has been increasing on Moscow to withdraw its forces under a cease-fire deal signed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
The United States and France have already charged that Russia is defying the truce, as Russian tanks and troops continue to roam freely across a wide swath of Georgian territory.
In Moscow, a Russian Defence Ministry spokesman on Sunday strongly denied a troop withdrawal from South Ossetia.
However, a Russian general on the ground, Maj. Gen. Vyachislav Borisov, told the Associated Press the "planned withdrawal" from the disputed province was under way. Borisov would not elaborate.
Georgia, bordering the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia, was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.
Under the leadership of its pro-Western president, Mikhail Saakashvili, George has sought NATO membership and has emerged as a proxy for conflict between an emboldened Russia and the West.
On Saturday President George W. Bush warned that Russia cannot lay claim to the two separatist regions in U.S.-backed Georgia - South Ossetia and Abkhazia - even though their sympathies lie with Moscow.
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