GEORGIA OUTRAGED BY ABKHAZ BANKS’ PRESENCE AT CONFERENCE IN ARMENIA

Channel 1 Television
Oct 15 2007
Georgia

[Presenter] A representative of the Bank of Georgia has attended
a conference in Yerevan where the Armenian side has also invited
Abkhaz banks. The bank’s press service confirmed this information,
explaining that their representative had not been informed that the
de facto republic’s banks were also participating in the conference,
which outraged the Georgian bank’s representative.

The fourth international banking conference was held in Yerevan on
10-13 October and three Abkhaz banks participated in it along with
Georgian, Russian, Armenian, and Ukrainian banks.

[Zurab Gvasalia, president of the Georgian Association of Banks]
This was illegal, since they know full well that these banks are
not licensed and they act absolutely illegally on the territory that
is not under the Georgian authorities’ control and they do not have
any licence. This is an outright crime that is punishable. We will
definitely respond to this.

[Temur Mzhavia, chairman of the Tbilisi-backed Supreme Council of the
Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia] When its [Abkhazia’s] banking sector
is represented at an international conference with the status of an
independent state and it is held on the territory of our fraternal
Armenia, of course, we will have to respond in an appropriate manner.

We have already made a decision and a letter is already being written
to be submitted to the Armenian embassy in Georgia and its number
one person if not today, at least tomorrow.