GEORGIA GIVES HIGH IMPORTANCE TO FRIENDLY RELATIONS WITH ARMENIA:
GEORGIAN PRESIDENT PRESS SERVICE

TBILISI, MARCH 19. ARMINFO. Georgia gives high importance to friendly
relations with Armenia, says the press service of the Georgian
president commenting on the ARF Dashnaktsoutyun party’s disproving the
facts given by the Georgian president’s foreign relations advisor
Valery Gachechiladze in his Mar 14 interview to Rao (Georgia).

The ARMINFO correspondent in Tbilisi reports that in the above
interview Gachechiladze says that Armenians settled in Georgia after
the tragic events in Turkey in 1915 when they became “a blind tool in
others’ hands.” And so he excludes the possibility of social explosion
in Samtskhe Javakheti (mostly Armenian region of Georgia) in case of
the withdrawal of the Russian military base from the regional center
Akhalkalaki. “Even though ARF Dashnaktsoutyun planned to destroy
Georgia the Armenians have not forgotten that it was Georgia who gave
them refuge after the above tragic events,” says Gachechiladze.

Disproving his statements ARFD says that it was not planning Georgia’s
breakdown by means of the North Caucasus. It’s goal is to protect the
rights of the Javakheti Armenians. Moreover ARFD condemns
Gachechiladze for calling Armenians “a blind tool in others’ hands”
thereby repeating Turkey’s official position on the Armenian Genocide.

In conclusion ARFD says that it is ready to assist the Georgian
authorities in their measures to help the Javakheti Armenians socially
and economically. “Discrimination against them will have no good
consequences for Georgia,” says ARFD.

Meanwhile the press service of the Georgian president says that
Gachechiladze is not presidential advisor for region relations and
that it does not agree with his statements on Samtskhe Javakheti. “We
are convinced that no provocative words or actions will be able to
bring tensions to the Georgians’ centuries old brotherly relations
with the Javakheti Armenians,” says the press service.