EU and NATO don’t recognise South Ossetia vote

The European Union and NATO condemned on Monday presidential elections held in South Ossetia, stressing that they do not recognize the region’s self-declared, and Russian-backed, independence from Georgia.

‘The European Union does not recognise the constitutional and legal framework within which these elections have taken place,’ Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, said in a statement.

‘The holding of such elections does not contribute to a peaceful and lasting settlement of the situation in Georgia,’ NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a separate statement.