TBILISI (Yerkir)–Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili Thursday met his visiting Armenian counterpart Vartan Oskanian, who is on a three-day visit to Georgia.
At the meeting the two discussed issues concerning cooperation between both countries in the political, economic and cultural arenas. Oskanian and Bezhuashvili also discussed regional issues, relations between neighboring countries, as well as partnership in international structures.
Oskanian drew his Georgian counterpart’s attention to arrests of Armenian citizens by Georgian law enforcement bodies near the Georgian-Armenian border. The two ministers also discussed issues concerning demarcation of the Armenian-Georgian border.
Touching upon settlemen’s of regional conflicts, Oskanian underscored the people of Karabakh’s commitment to democracy and briefed Bezhuashvili about the latest developmen’s in the peace process.
Bezhuashvili presented Georgia’s approach to the settlement of the Abkhazia conflict and steps to give the South Ossetian conflict an international character, reported the Armenian foreign ministery.
A day before the meeting between the two ministers, a Ukrainan-Georgian organization based in Odessa, Ukraine issued an anti-Armenian announcement claiming that the Armenian population of Javakhk has been working against the Georgian government.
The announcement from the Sakratoelo organization also claimed that local Javakhk organizations, including the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, were engaged in an alleged campaign to present that area of Georgia as historic Armenian lands to the international community.
“The priority for these organizations has been to annex Samtskhe-Javaketi with Armenia and eventually create a Greater Armenia nation,” stressed the announcement.
The announcement also claimed that Armenia’s living in Javakhk were expelling Georgian from the region by force and were creating Armenian separatist armed formations in the region.
In conclusion, the announcement demanded that Armenia’s of the region end their “chauvinistic” ideals and threatened that they would have to deal with the Sakratoelo organization in retaliation.
