ANKARA - The Russian Embassy in Ankara commemorated on Tuesday the Russian peace force soldiers and civilians who lost their lives in clashes in South Ossetia.
Participants observed a minute of silence in honor of the casualties in the ceremony held at the embassy building in the Turkish capital.
"The Georgian armed forces launched their bloody attacks in South Ossetia 40 days ago, killed 1,500-2,000 civilians in the capital Tskhinvali, and totally destroyed the city," Russian Ambassador to Turkey Vladimir Ivanovski said during the ceremony.
Ivanovski said that "Russia had to send troops to both South Ossetia and Abkhazia to protect the Russian citizens living there."
The ambassador said that "they could understand the incidents that occurred in the region on the night of August 8th and afterwards better as time passed."
Also speaking in the ceremony, Cihan Candemir, the chairman of the Federation of Caucasian Associations, said that people living in that region did not have any problems with each other.
"The real problem is the chauvinist administrators who do not respect the rights of other nations," Candemir said.
Candemir expressed wish that these incidents would be the last of their kind in the region, and the people of Caucasus, who had experienced many agonies throughout history, would not experience more agonies and peace and order would prevail in the entire region.
On August 7th, Georgia launched an offensive targeting South Ossetia, that declared its independence unilaterally. Russian tanks, troops and warplanes immediately repelled the Georgian attack on South Ossetia and drove deep into Georgia in a five-day war that killed hundreds of people and displaced nearly 200,000.
Russia recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states after the incidents.
(BRC-CE)
(DIP)