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Armenian President Proposes Measures To Alleviate Plight Of Minority In Georgia


Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian
Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian
Addressing a gathering of senior Armenian diplomats on September 1, President Serzh Sarkisian outlined measures he considers necessary to help the large Armenian community in southern Georgia integrate more successfully into Georgian society without losing their Armenian identity.

Those measures include granting Armenian the formal status of a regional language, registering the Armenian Apostolic Church, and preserving Armenian historic monuments on Georgian territory.

Granting Armenian the status of an official regional language was one of the issues NGOs in the predominantly Armenian-populated Djavakheti (Armenian Djavakhk) region of southern Georgia asked Sarkisian to raise with his Georgian counterpart, Mikheil Saakashvili, during Sarkisian's official visit to Tbilisi in late June.

Many Armenians in Djavakhk have only a rudimentary knowledge of Georgian, which limits their career prospects.

They also asked for restoring to Armenian control a number of churches and other historic monuments to which Georgia also names claim, and, crucially, local self-government for the region.

About This Blog

This blog presents analyst Liz Fuller's personal take on events in the region, following on from her work in the "RFE/RL Caucasus Report." It also aims, to borrow a metaphor from Tom de Waal, to act as a smoke detector, focusing attention on potential conflict situations and crises throughout the region. The views are the author's own and do not represent those of RFE/RL.

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