Russian base pullout should not worry Georgia’s Armenians – foreign minister
Kavkasia-Press news agency
28 Apr 05
TBILISI
Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili has said that the
pullout of the Russian military bases from Georgia will not create
problems for ethnic Armenians living in [the southern Georgian]
Akhalkalaki [District]. Zourabichvili said she was confident that the
authorities would be able to offer alternative employment
opportunities to Akhalkalaki residents after the completion of the
pullout.
Commenting on the position of local Armenians who oppose the pullout
[of the Akhalkalaki base], Zourabichvili said that in a democratic
country citizens should not be distinguished by their ethnic
background. “This [inappropriate distinction] goes back to Soviet
times,” she noted. “We are all citizens of Georgia. There is a local
problem, that’s all there is to it, and we are going to resolve this
problem,” the minister said.
“The Russian side is trying to prove to us that there will be problems
after the pullout of the bases, but this is an ordinary “game” which
came as no surprise to us,” Zourabichvili noted. “We even discussed
this issue with the Armenian leader [President Robert Kocharyan] and
assured him that there was no problem at all,” she added.