NO SPLITS OR CLASHES BETWEEN ARMENIANS AND ABKHAZIANS IN ABKHAZIA
PanARMENIAN.Net
14.12.2006 16:10 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Currently about 60 thousand Armenians live in
Abkhazia: it is the second largest nation in the republic, said in
Yerevan Galust Trapizonian, a depute of Abkhazian Parliament and
the Co-Chair of the Armenian Community in Abkhazia. In his words, the
Armenians take part in the public life of Abkhazia rather actively. "We
have three parliamentarians out of 35, three deputy-ministers and
one minister on State-standards of Armenian origin. Of course, we
could have more Armenians in the power structures. In March of 2007
Parliamentary elections will be held and we hope we can increase the
number of our deputies in the parliament," Trapizonian underlined.
In regard of Georgian population, the parliamentarian said that
45 thousand Georgians reside in Galski region, which borders
Georgia. "This territory is merely uncontrollable and we are not
aware what is going on there. I must say that currently passports
are being distributed for internal use, where citizenship will be
mentioned. The passports will be on three languages – on Abkhazian,
Georgian and Russian. 92 % of the population of Abkhazia has Russian
citizenship but they have Russian foreign, not regular passport. The
Georgians in Galski region have Georgian passports. If they want
to accept Abkhazian citizenship nobody will be against it. It is
worth mentioning that according to the population census of 1989 525
thousand people resided in Abkhazia, now only 236 thousand continue
to live there," Said Galust Trapizonian.
The Armenian Community Co-Chair also added that there are 37 Armenian
acting schools in the republic, where study 2800 children. "In Russian
schools the number of Armenian-origin children is much more higher
– about 8400. It is connected with the fact that the graduates can
continue their education only in Armenia," he stressed.
Talking about armed clashes between the Armenians and Abkhazians
after the war, Trapizonian underlined that such things used to happen
before 1999. "At those times we had to take under our control the
villages in 6 regions of Abkhazia and the state himself provided us
with guards. Now there are no splits or clashes between Armenians and
Abkhazians. By the way, there are only 7 regions in Abkhazia and the
Armenians really make majority after the native population.