PARLIAMENT IS GOING TO MEET SHEVARNADZE TO DISCUSS

THE DEPUTY OF THE GEORGIAN PARLIAMENT IS GOING TO MEET SHEVARNADZE TO DISCUSS
THE PROBLEM OF AKHALKALAKI DISTRICT.
20.06.2000 18.00
20.06.2000, MEDIAMAX, YEREVAN. The deputy of the parliament of Georgia from Akhalkalaki district
Melik Raisian is going to meet next week the president of Georgia Edward Shevarnadze on the matter of
appointment of the head of administration in this district.
Ethnic Armenians live compactly in this region of Georgia and make up 90 % of the population.
As Prime News reports, Melik Raisian considers illicit the appointment of Artyusha Hambartsumian to the
post of the head of administration of Akhalkalaki district and declares that this appointment may end in
serious opposition amongst the population of the district.
The representative of the president of Georgia in Samtskhe-Javakheti region, which is a part of Akhalkalaki
district, Gigla Baramidze demanded categorically at the meeting of the regional administration on Monday
that the leading officials of non-Georgian origin should know the Georgian language. Concrete terms were
fixed at the meeting - the officials should master Georgian within a year maximum. Otherwise they will be
dismissed from their posts according to the Constitution of Georgia.
Lately the relations between the ethnic Armenians and the Georgians in Samtskhe-Javakheti region have
aggravated greatly.
On June 12 a squabble took place between a group of Armenians leaving for Georgia from Armenia, the
residents of Akhalkalaki and the workers of the frontier point near the Nimotsminda region, during which
one of the frontier guards hit a 70-year-old Armenian woman. The squabble came to a fight between the
local Armenian population and the workers of the frontier point. According to the reports of the Georgian
sources, matters took such a turn that the locals set fire to the building of the frontier point.
After the collisions which took place on June 2 between the countrymen of the Armenian village Poka of
Nimotsminda region and the religious Georgian believers who had arrived there on the holiday of Saint
Nino, the member of the parliamentary faction "Unity of Citizens" Van Bayburt admitted that a group of
15-20 persons existed in this region of the country who speculated in the social-economic situation of the
population and raise the question of giving autonomy to this southern region of Georgia. -0