From: TEX5HAD@CMS1.LEEDS.AC.UK (Haluk DEMIRBAG)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Fighting over in Ossetia, Yeltsin says (fwd)
Date: 11 Nov 1992 00:01:17 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
Reply-To: Turkish Cultural Program List <TRKNWS-L%USCVM.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
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>From: clarinews@clarinet.com (GUY CHAZAN)
Subject: Fighting over in Ossetia, Yeltsin says
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 4:20:25 PST

	MOSCOW (UPI) -- Russian troops are now firmly in control of the
Caucasus republic of North Ossetia, scene of fierce ethnic fighting last
week, and the situation there is now calm, President Boris Yeltsin said
Monday.
	``The measures we took to take control of the situation are
sufficient and we will continue to exert all our efforts to prevent the
conflict continuing,'' Yeltsin said before leaving for an official visit
to the United Kingdom.
	Several thousand Russian troops sent last week to intervene in the
conflict between Ossetians and Ingush in the small southern republic
have occupied the entire Prigorodny district of North Ossetia, scene of
most of the fighting.
	``All the villages have been taken under control, the military
command is working, arms are continually being confiscated from the
population, and a curfew is being enforced,'' said Georgy Khizha, head
of the provisional administration that took over power in North Ossetia
after Yeltsin imposed a state of emergency and direct presidential rule
there last Monday.
	Khizha was apparently replaced Monday as head of the temporary
government by Sergei Shakhrai, a close Yeltsin aide who was last week
appointed deputy Prime Minister and head of the Russian State Committee
on Nationalities.
	Khizha said he had seen no official confirmation of the change but
added: ``Of course with the appearance of Shakhrai, as the man directly
responsible for nationalities policy, these functions will pass onto
him.''
	Khizha said the state of emergency was still only effective on
Ossetian territory, although attempts were being made to extend it to
Ingushetia also.
	He said as many as 200 people had died in the Ossetian-Ingush
conflict, which began as a dispute over the Prigorodny district, claimed
by the Ingush but part of Ossetian territory since 1944.
	The Ingush were expelled from the region by Joseph Stalin for
allegedly collaborating with German invaders during the Second World
War. But recent legislation rehabilitating repressed peoples gives them
the right to return to their native lands and claim territory they lost
when they were deported.
	Khizha blamed that law for sparking the present conflict between
Ossetia and Ingushetia because it suggested territorial disputes could
be resolved by redrawing boundaries -- a prospect he dismissed as
``hopeless.''
	``To deal with territorial problems in such a way at such a time is
just madness,'' Khizha told reporters.
	As many as 30,000 Ingush fled to Ingushetia to escape the fighting,
and 6,000 Ossetian refugees are holed up at a hastily erected camp on a
Russian military base in the Prigorodny district.
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