Misunderstanding between Georgia and Armenia solved swiftly

The Georgian Foreign Ministry summoned Armenia’s ambassador Yuri Vardanyan on May 4 to express their concern about a meeting held between Armenian National Assembly Speaker Galust Sahakyan and chairman of Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia Anatoly Bibilov.

According to the media of South Ossetia, the meeting was held in breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh and Bibilov was in there to “observe” May 3 parliamentary elections. He was invited there by the Armenian National Assembly Speaker Galust Sahakyan, but this part of the report about the invitation was later retracted by the breakaway South Ossetian parliament’s press office.

It also said that the sides discussed issues of bilateral cooperation and spoke about the genocide of Armenians in 1915.

At the meeting with the Armenian Ambassador, the deputy Foreign Minister of Georgia, Gigi Gigiadze expressed his great concern over meeting between the Armenian official and representative of the de-facto Ossetian government.

Gigiadze reminded the ambassador that Georgia and Armenian have been maintaining friendly relations for many years and officials should refrain from actions that would harm these relations.

Vardanyan said he shared the concern over the issue and promised to deliver Georgia’s position to Yerevan.

Shortly after the meeting between the ambassador and deputy-foreign minister of Georgia, Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili received a phone call from Armenian PM Hovik Abrahamyan.

As the Armenian PM explained to Garibashvili, Anatoly Bibilov was in Nagorno-Karabakh on a nonworking day for a private visit and had an informal meeting with Galust Sahakyan.

“No official issues were discussed, neither did the meeting relate to Georgia’s occupied territories,” he said.

The Georgian Ambassador in Armenia, Tengiz Sharmanashvili said he had a meeting at the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and officially Yerevan condemns the meeting that took place between Sahakyan and Bibilov.

The incident did not harm the relations between Georgia and Armenia and the parties managed to clear all concerns. All the hassle was because of the de-facto South Ossetian government and its statement. Later the press centre of the de-facto government updated the statement on the web-page, apologized for the error made and said Bibilov had a meeting with president of Kharabagh, Bako Saakian.