The Messenger, Georgia
July 8 2005

Paper: American official made “false evaluation”

The Azeri newspaper Ekho Baku reports that an American official has
labeled Armenian as well as Azeri diasporas in Georgia ‘pro-Russian
forces.’ According to the paper, U.S. State Department’s Advisor on
National Security Stephen J. Hadley made an interesting statement and
expressed his opinion that Armenian and Azeri diasporas in Georgia
pursue pro-Russian interests in the country, politicizing all common
problems with an aim toward pressuring central authorities. The paper
does not cite the source of Hadley’s alleged statement.
According to Ekho Baku, Georgian political analyst Givi Bolotashili
does not agree with such an opinion and states, “The Azeri people in
Georgia really have lots of common problems, about which they are
loudly speaking. However, these problems are not being politicized.”
As for the Armenian population of the Akhalkalaki region,
Bolotashvili agrees that all the common problems always get
politicized, the paper states.
“Sometimes, there are demands about autonomy and so on from the
Armenian population. As for the Azeri population, I have never heard
that any Azeri organizations have political demands. I cannot agree
with the opinion of the American politician because it is impossible
to compare all the problems with each other,” he said in the paper.
A member of the National Movement of Azeri people of Georgia “Geirat”
Zumrud Gurbanov told the paper the American high-ranking official was
either misled or he himself misleads the world’s community by
pursuing some political goals.
“I do not want to think that Hadley is such a simple person who does
not know real state of affairs in the country. Most probably, this
statement has been made specially. I think that all the events that
have been taking place in Georgia is shown to the entire world from
the point of view of the West and particularly from the point of view
of Tbilisi,” Gurbanov said.
According to him, for the last 15 years of independent Georgia, none
of the Azeri organizations has expressed a pro-Russian orientation.
The Azeri people of Georgia always were supporters of Georgia’s full
independence, the paper states, and supporters of the withdrawal of
all the Russian military bases from Javakheti. “And note please that
Armenians are against this. They obviously hold a pro-Russian
orientation, and moreover, they have much fewer social-economic
problems than Azeri people in Georgia,” Gurbanov concluded.