( Civil ) - Georgia is in a battle "to win hearts and minds" of local population in South Ossetia, President Saakashvili told his government members on July 18.
"Please take into consideration that we have timeframes; so we should work round-the-clock," he said while speaking at the government session.
Saakashvili also made it clear that there is a firm political decision to provide sufficient funding for rehabilitation and social projects in the region in frames of this approach.
It is a fight between "a rich, but not flexible mechanism and the Georgian state, which is the state of Georgians, Ossetians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis and other ethnicities," Saakashvili said.
He noted that a governmental commission, chaired by PM Zurab Nogaideli, will be set up to launch talks with head of Tbilisi-loyal South Ossetian provisional administration, Dimitri Sanakoev, to elaborate autonomous status for the region within the Georgian state.
"These will be serious negotiations. These will not be just formal talks, because our partners are serious people, serious leaders and serious representatives of one part of the Georgian population - large part of the ethnic Ossetians," he said referring to Sanakoev's administration.
He said that in this process Tbilisi should "show cautious, but at the same time a bold approach."
State Minister for Conflict Resolution Issues, Merab Antadze, said on July 18, that the commission will be set up by all the cabinet of members, plus representatives from the Sanakoev's administration.
"We have an opportunity to restore links between all the villages, all the communities and people and between the Georgian state and important part of its society [Ossetian people]," Saakashvili said.
He once again spoke out against using terms: 'the Georgian side' and 'the South Ossetian side.' "Everyone should erase these terms from their vocabularies," he said.
Saakashvili said that it could have been tolerable if only televisions were using these terms; the problem, however, is, he said, that "some government members even say 'Ossetian villages' and 'Georgian village."
"Even if 'the Ossetian side' existed, that would be the provisional administration, which is based on the representatives of the local population," he said.
"And what is unknowingly termed as ' Ossetia side' [referring to the Tskhinvali-based secessionist authorities], there the ethnic Ossetian population is poorly represented. We all know where those people are brought from," Saakashvili added, referring to the fact that some top-level officials in the secessionist authorities are from the Russian Federation.
His remarks reflect Tbilisi's attempts to portray the conflict in South Ossetia not as "an ethnic conflict," but rather as a conflict involving "criminal elements" in Tskhinvali being manipulated by "certain forces" in Russia.
Tbilisi's active and on-going promotion of Sanakoev, an ethnic Ossetian and former defense minister in the secessionist South Ossetian government, is the most obvious manifestation of this view and policy.
He also called on the cabinet members to boost conflict resolution efforts.
"I think conflict resolution efforts should become much more intensive and efficient. The international community should be much more involved in the process. The Georgian government should be more pro-active," Saakashvili said.
"We have a success on the ground in the Tskhinvali region [referring to South Ossetia], but we need to spread this [success] on other conflict as well [referring to Abkhazia]. There are numerous flaws and we have much work to do."