Georgia will not take into account a referendum in its small separatist territory of South Ossetia, in which almost 100 percent of voters have opted for independence, Georgia's prime minister said in an interview published in the Financial Times on Tuesday.
Zurab Nogaideli joined in condemning the conduct of the poll, which took place on Sunday, after the only Georgian organisation allowed to monitor it said it was marred by falsifications.
"We knew from the very beginning that there would be no free voting and much more votes counted than there are people in the region," Nogaideli told the newspaper.
"It was a provocative action ... with the support of Russia which can only increase tensions in the conflict zone and in the region. We are not going to take it into account. It's pretty clear that nobody is going to recognise the results," he said.
Results received from 78 percent of polling stations following the Sunday referendum showed that 98 to 99 percent of voters had cast their ballots in favour of independence, election officials told AFP. No independent confirmation was available.
As local residents celebrated what the rebel authorities trumpeted as a victory, with cars honking horns and flying South Ossetian flags, political leaders in Tbilisi discounted the ballot as irrelevant and the European Union reiterated its previous rejection of the vote.
Populated by both ethnic Ossetians and Georgians on Russia's southwestern border, South Ossetia has long been a regional flashpoint.
Tensions between Tbilisi and Moscow escalated last month when Georgia arrested and then expelled four Russian officers it accused of spying.