Georgia's breakaway region South Ossetia on Thursday lifted the state of emergency that was imposed after military conflicts between Georgian and Russian troops there.

Head of the South Ossetia administration Eduard Kokoity signed a corresponding decree to this effect but the curfew remains in force yet, Itar-Tass news agency cited a spokeswoman for the local government as saying.

The local administration dispelled the government and imposed the state of emergency on Aug. 17, one day after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev inked a French-brokered ceasefire agreement to end several days of military conflict with Georgia.

Georgian troops entered the self-proclaimed independent Caucasus region and began shelling local capital Tshinvali on early Aug. 8. Russian troops then moved into the region to reinforce its peacekeepers there and exchanged fire with the Georgians. South Ossetia, formerly an autonomous region within Georgia, declared independence from Georgia in the early 1990s and it has been controlled by a secessionist government since then. But its independence has not been internationally recognized.

(Xinhua News Agency August 21, 2008)