Trend, Azerbaijan
Aug 29 2009

Georgia’s Armenians take Georgian surnames

Azerbaijan, Baku, August 19 / Trend News J. Babayeva /

Georgia’s Armenians are assuming Georgian surnames, representatives of
Azerbaijanis’ National Movement, Geyrat, said. They said that this
process is one part of Armenians’ unrealizable dream of a ‘Great
Armenia’.

"This process took place during 1956-1986. At present, in Georgia it
is impossible to distinguish Armenians from Georgians. Any citizen can
change his surname according to an Georgian law adopted in 2004," a
member of Azerbaijanis’ National Movement Geyrat’s board, Zumrud
Gurbanli, told media in Baku on August 19.

He said that Georgia must carefully consider this issue.

Armenian websites and media spread provoking materials on the Borchali
region, Chairman of the Geyrat movement, Alibala Askerov, said.

"In these materials they even unite the Borchali (Kvemo-Kartli) and
Samtskhe-Javakheti regions. Armenian websites even represent me as an
agent for Azerbaijan and Turkey. They wrote that I intended to create
a schism in Georgia. We do not fear Armenian provocations. Borchali is
a historic Turkic land," he said.

According to unofficial information, about 500,000 Azerbaijanis live
in Georgia, in particular in the Kvemo-Kartli region (Borchali).

According to statistics, about 70 percent of the Georgian population
is made up of Georgians. Also living in Georgia are Armenians
(380,000), Azerbaijanis (350,000), Russian (207,000), Ossetians
(150,000), Abkhazians (100,000), Greeks (80,000), Curds, Assyrians,
Udins, Avars and Kistins.

The Chairman of the Georgian Azerbaijanis’ Congress said that
Armenians are provided with jobs in leading state positions in
Samtskhe-Javakheti. "Armenians take these positions without knowing
the state language. But there is not one Azerbaijani citizen in the 48
state agencies of Borchali as Azerbaijanis do not know state
language," the chairman of the congress, Ali Babayev, said.