Tbilisi’s approach to South Ossetia received a sweeping endorsement from the United State on July 27, when a top US diplomat said it was time to move to the final stage of conflict resolution by defining the region’s political status within Georgia.

Speaking with journalists in Tbilisi, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Mathew Bryza said Tbilisi’s actions towards South Ossetia were fully in line with the three-stage peace plan laid out by the Georgian authorities three years ago.

“For the past year we and the international community worked with the Georgian government to implement economic and confidence-building measures. We tried to see progress on demilitarization and now it is time to move to the third phase which is to talk about political resolution of the conflict,” Bryza said after talks with Georgian PM Zurab Nogaideli.

President Saakashvili initiated the three-stage plan when he addressed a UN General Assembly session in September 2004. The first stage calls for a demilitarization of the conflict zone; confidence-building and socio-economic rehabilitation measures constitute the second stage and a comprehensive political settlement of the conflict forms the third stage of the resolution process.

Bryza said the Georgian government’s decision to set up an all-inclusive commission to define South Ossetia’s status was part of the final stage of the plan.

“The formation of a commission with participation by Ossetians and the government of Georgian – Ossetians meaning both people loyal to Mr. Kokoity and those who are loyal to Mr. Sanakoev – is part of the evolution of this Georgian plan that we fully support,” he said. “The key point is to define autonomy for South Ossetia in the unified Georgia."

Eduard Kokoity, the secessionist South Ossetian leader, has denounced the commission, saying that the region’s ‘independence’ had already been defined in a referendum in 1992 and reaffirmed in a repeat referendum last November. Dimitri Sanakoev, the head of the Tbilisi-backed South Ossetian provisional administration, has welcomed the commission.

The U.S. diplomat, echoing the Georgian authorities’ stance, has also endorsed Sanakoev.

“The fact that Mr. Sanakoev seems to have growing support in South Ossetia is just a fact; it is a reality,” Bryza said.

Meanwhile, Georgia has received a more tentative endorsement from the OSCE Spanish chairmanship. José Borrell Fontelles, the OSCE chairman-in-office’s special envoy, welcomed Tbilisi’s initiatives to involve all parties in the South Ossetia conflict resolution process.

The special envoy, who visited Tbilisi and Tskhinvali on July 25-26, stressed “the need for full inclusiveness of all interested actors, and a considered pace of work.”

Moscow, however, remains less than enthusiatic towards Tbilisi’s approach to South Ossetia. The Russian ambassador in Georgia, Vyacheslav Kovalenko, reiterated on July 27 that he doubted Russia would be involved in the state commission on South Ossetia’s status.