ETHNIC AZERI GROUP WANTS GEORGIA TO BE CONFEDERATION

Interfax
March 3 2009
Russia

Georgia should be turned into a "confederation" whose constituent
parts would be regions predominantly populated by ethnic Georgians,
Azeris, Ossetians and Abkhaz, according to Dashgyn Gyulmamedov,
president of the National Assembly for Azeris in Georgia (NAAG).

"Otherwise, Georgian statehood will be ruined," Gyulmamedov told a
news conference at the headquarters of the Interfax-Azerbaijan news
agency on Tuesday.

"Neither Europe nor Russia nor Turkey needs Georgia with the problems
it is experiencing at present. After a year those countries will
themselves embark on a procedure to create a confederated Georgian
state," he said.

The NAAG had put its proposal before the Council of Europe, the
European Union and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Gyulmamedov said.

"We see the territorial integrity of Georgia as indispensable to the
solution of all the problems," and NAAG is against alleged separatist
activities by ethnic Armenians living in Georgia, he added.