TBILISI, Nov 13: Almost 100 per cent of voters in Georgia's small separatist territory of South Ossetia have opted for independence, according to partial results released on Monday after a weekend referendum that critics warned could inflame regional tensions.

Results received from 78 per cent of polling stations following the Sunday referendum showed that 98 to 99 per cent of voters had cast their ballots in favour of independence, election officials said. No independent confirmation was available.

But 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.

“Everybody needs to understand, once and for all, that no amount of referendums or elections will move Georgia to give up that which belongs to the Georgian people by God's will,” Georgi Tsagareishvili, head of the Georgian parliament's Industrialists bloc said in televised remarks.

On a visit to Moldova, Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili said the country would resolve its territorial problems peacefully and added that Tbilisi had “done everything possible to prevent the referendum provoking any kind of deterioration in the region”. —AFP