Kvirikashvili in Yerevan, Abkhazian’s in Karabakh (!)

OPED

The Georgian Prime Minister, Giorgi Kvirikashvili, was in Yerevan, Armenia this week to meet the high ranking officials of the neighboring country, accompanied by Minister of Energy Kakhi Kaladze. Kaladze’s presence, following on from a joint visit to Azerbaijan last week, once again implied the direction of the themes that were to be discussed over the meeting table between the leaders of the two countries. Despite the previously scheduled protocol, however, the parties were forced to discuss something completely different.

Two days before the visit to Yerevan, photos uploaded from the city Stepanakert by the so-called deputy Minister of Foreign affairs of the occupied Abkhazia, Kan Tania, went viral on social networks. The photo depicted the President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, and the so-called governmental delegation of Abkhazia celebrating the 25th anniversary of the “Independence Day” of Karabakh. The scandalous photo instantly caused a fuss in Tbilisi as well as Yerevan. Soon after the photo was uploaded, the Ambassador of Armenia to Georgia, Hovanes Manukyan, had to make an official statement and President Sargsyan’s Administration had to prove that the meeting with Abkhaz guests in Stepanakert was a mere coincidence.

Despite such official statements, the political opposition in Tbilisi accused Official Yerevan of cooperation with Abkhaz separatists, and Kvirikashvili’s government of inaction. The main accusation of the political opposition towards the government of Armenia was not the meeting with the separatists over the feast table in Stepanakert, but the fact that permission had been given to the Abkhazian delegation to cross the border into Armenia.

Further surprises from Kvirikashvili’s visit saw the Georgian PM bring flowers to the Memorial of the so-called Turkish Genocide, though Georgia does not officially recognize the massive killing of Armenians in Turkey in 1914-15 as genocide. In its turn, Yerevan had done its “homework” for Official Tbilisi- with the Armenian delegation to the UN consistently refusing to vote in support of the return of Georgian IDPs to Abkhazia. Add to this the Roki tunnel closure in spring and the claims of violations of ceremonial monuments and rights of ethnic Armenians with Georgian citizenship.

Unsurprisingly, the official press release for the meeting of Kvirikashvili and Sargsyan concerned more the diplomatic etiquette than the true relations between the neighboring countries: “During the face-to-face meeting, the parties highlighted the centuries-old friendship and the cultural ties between the two historical nations,” it read.

Zaza Jgarkava