GEORGIAN NEW PRIME MINISTER – AN OLD FRIEND OF ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT
PanArmenian News
Feb 11 2005
Yerevan hopes that the appointment of Zurab Nogdayeli will allow to
preserve the trusting atmosphere between political leadership of
Armenia and Georgia.
Within the next few days the president of Georgia Mikhail
Sahakashvili will sign the decree on appointing the minister of
finance Zurab Nogdayeli to the post of Prime Minister. Armenian
government has a wealth of experience in cooperating with this figure
and it is quite reasonable to assume that the appointment of the new
leader will not spoil intergovernmental relations between the two
countries.
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Warm relations that connected Armenian leadership
and Zurab Jvania were not at all conditioned by his ethnic origins.
Working contacts with him were all crowned with success. Jvania
personally coordinated the solution of several issues connected with
Armenia. That is why besides sincere sympathy the tragic death of the
Prime Minister caused Armenian leaders to worry about agreements
reached with the late head of the government. It is hard to say
whether the appointment of Zurab Nogdayeli will preserve the friendly
atmosphere in the relations between Armenian and Georgian
governments. But in current conditions this appointment was perhaps
optimal in all senses and harmless for Armenian-Georgian relations.
Armenian political leaders know Nogdayeli very well. Yet being a
deputy he participated in Armenian-Georgian inter-Parliamentary
contacts as well as agreements on the level of Armenian and Georgian
youth organizations. As a minister of finance he had normal working
relations with the members of Armenian government. He worked with
Armenian minister of finance Vardan Khachatryan, foreign minister
Vardan Oskanyan and transport minister Andranik Manukyan. As a
minister of finance, Nogdayeli has twice been in Yerevan in February
and September, 2001. Both visits were aimed at discussing the destiny
of the 20 million debt of Georgia to Armenia. In that period the
behavior of the minister seemed a bit strange since he cast doubt on
the sum that Georgia owed to Armenia and then evaded giving an answer
about the terms and forms of paying back the debt. In Yerevan
Nogdayeli showed himself as characterized by the speaker of Georgian
parliament Nino Burjanadze: a tough, uncompromising person. It is
hard to say how the negotiations on the debt would end if president
Shevarnadze did not call the minister to start the payment of
interest on debts. Anyway, it is worth mentioning that Nogdayeli’s
hard behavior in negotiations was not at all conditioned by any
special attitude towards Armenia. The minister just felt the heavy
responsibility for budget implementation and watched every penny. As
a result, failing the budget he had to resign which he did
beautifully, expressing disagreement with the course of Edward
Shevardnadze.
The appointment of Nogdayeli is on the whole convenient for Armenian
community of Georgia. Being a minister Nogdayeli tried to focus
attention on the problems of Javakhq. Particularly he promised in
December to find funds for constructing Tbilisi – Ninotsminda road
and implementing other programs in Javakhq. Nogdayeli is on good
terms with the leadership of Armenian community of Georgia. As it is
known Nogdayeli was one of the most reliable members of Zurab
Jvania’s team where the president of the Union of Georgian Armenians
Gena Muradyan played an important role. The new head of the
government and the head of Armenian community represent one political
clan. This allows hoping that Muradyan will keep his position after
changes in the personnel. (Muradyan occupies the position of deputy
president of the department that coordinates industry, trade,
transport and communications)
Political correspondents initially predicted that the future Prime
Minister will be a person who was fateful to Jvania. This appointment
is aimed at preserving the ruling triumvirate. But now, it is already
obvious that the candidature of Zurab Nogdayeli as a Prime Minister
is not convenient for Nino Burjanadze, so it is possible that there
may be serious contradictions between the key components of the
ruling triumvirate. On one hand this will allow Georgia to gain
healthy opposition which is now missing but on the other hand it will
weaken the positions of the ruling power. This can be alarming also
Armenia since à a lot of things depend on the stability in the
neighboring country.
Artyom Yerkanyan
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