The events of the second half of 2004 have demonstrated that the curing of “paralyzed” Osetian limb is a very dangerous process and this may cause permanent harm to the rest of the body. Avoiding previous made mistakes, Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgian President decided to utilize a social “receipt”. He requested that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) assist him in deciding how best to find the most appropriate and effective cure. The NGOs gladly accepted the assigned task at hand after the long-frozen conflict nearly became a hot war again and drew in Russia when dozens were killed in August 2004 fighting. President Saakashvili tried to break a twelve-year deadlock and take another step to restore Georgia’s territorial integrity.

As Davit Darchiashvili, the Executive Director of the Open Society Fund – Georgia states, “work on such conflict issues is usual for his organization and it has previously elaborated many programs and concerns on this topic over the years. His NGO has a project for Shida Kartli – The Reasons, Dynamics, and the Solutions for the Georgian-Ossetian Conflict – an independent analysis.

Davit Darchiashvili, who is also a Georgian political expert and writes on trends of strategic thinking in Georgia, and a small number of journalists have been participating in this project from the start, with the co-ordination and input of Pasta Zakareishvili, a expert of conflict resolution. The working group has collected much resource materials, which makes it now possible to arrive to some informed decisions about the origins, the escalation of Georgian-Osetian conflict, and how best to find a peaceful solution.

Darchiashvili also said “that the expansion of the group is now necessary and the selected experts must participate in its activities and to study the main ways of finding a solution to the Georgian-Osetian Conflict. It is expected that in another two to three months that the foundation for a new concept will have been laid and then work can be implemented in finding the way to successful conflict resolution. “This document must be universal in its scope, in which every detail will be analyzed, even to which armed division should be disbanded or joined with other units,” Darchiashvili said.

Paata Zakareishvili states with remorse that there was an opportunity to have found a solution for this conflict a few years ago. “We had a chance to overcome the conflict as far back as 2000, but Eduard Kokoity became the president of the breakaway region, and as a result the process took a step backwards. The events of the second half of 2004 have even reinforced the dark history in a simmering conflict zone,” Zakareishvili states.

He also said that during the presidency of Eduard Shevardnadze, the time has been stretched-out artificially; the conflict was held stagnant. Now, however, we have another problem – the government wants to resolve this conflict as soon as possible, and this places experts working in this direction in a difficult situation.

Paata Zakareishvili and Davit Darchiashvili agree that unlike that unlike the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict, there are almost no analytical materials on Georgian-Osetian conflict to study; there is also a dearth of experts and specialists who fully understand the issues at hand. Regardless, and in spite of the difficulties and challenges, Davit Darchiashvili is still confident that the perfect conception for the solution of the Georgian-Ossetian Conflict will soon be presented to government for their consideration.