ARMENIA AND GEORGIA: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS
Abstract
Relations between Armenia and Georgia go back many centuries into the history of these two neighboring nations. The recent history of their relations as two post-Soviet newly independent states is only two decades old, which means that certain problems have not yet been resolved.
Both countries have to cope with political, ethnopolitical, economic, linguistic, and religious problems; the situation in both countries is further complicated by the far from simple processes of nation-building and the countries’ involvement in bloody ethnopolitical conflicts in the Caucasus. This has inevitably affected the political and socioeconomic development of both Armenia and Georgia.
Here I am going to assess the general dynamics, present state, possible prospects, and potential problems in Armenian-Georgian relations. I have paid particular attention to the main parameters of their relations in the economic, communication, political, military, cultural, educational, and humanitarian spheres, to say nothing of an especially important aspect regarding the Russian factor in Armenian-Georgian relations and the situation in Samtskhe-Javakheti, an administrative region of Georgia with a predominantly Armenian population.
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See: Statistichesky ezhegodnik Armenii—2010, Erevan, 2010.
See: External Trade of Georgia, 2009. National Statistic Office of Georgia, Tbilisi, 2010.
See: Statistichesky ezhegodnik Armenii—2010.
See: External Trade of Georgia, 2009.
Ibidem.
See: “Gazprom pri posrednichestve nemtsev khochet vyvesti armianskuiu elektroenergiiu cherez Gruziiu v Turtsi-iu,” available at [www.regnum.ru/news/1372256.html], 7 February, 2011.
According to the National Agency of Georgia for Tourism, in 2010 nearly 480 thousand Armenians visited Geor-gia. Not all of them, however, were tourists: many of them either travelled across the country or came for business purposes.
he figure 100 thousand looks much more plausible: according to the Ministry of Economics and Sustainable Development of Georgia, about 95 thousand Armenian tourists visited Ajaria (the main tourist attraction); together with other seaside resorts a figure of about 100 thousand looks realistic.
See: “Myagkoe pogloshchenie: v 2010 godu 103 armianskie kompanii pereregistrirovali biznes v Gruzii,” availa-ble at [http://www.regnum.ru/news/fd-abroad/armenia/1372814.html], 8 February, 2011.
In Georgian this region, part of the Samtskhe-Javakheti Gubernia, is called Javakheti, while the local Armenians and Armenian sources call it Javakhk.
See: G. Nodia, “Pending Normalization of Turkish-Armenian Relations: Implications for Georgia,” CIPDD Poli-cy Brief, No. 2, January 2010.
“Dazhe imeia 25% aktsiy gazoprovoda ‘Sever-Yug,’ Azerbaijan ne smozhet shantazhirovat Armeniiu,” available at [http://www.panarmenian.net/rus/economy/news/63045/], 2 March, 2011.
See: “Chto nameren obsudit Saakashvili v khode vizita v Erevan?” available at [http://www.profi-forex.org/news/
ntry1008063633.html], 22 January 2011.
Later, for different reasons, Azerbaijan withdrew its resolution.
For more detail, see: S. Minasian, Etnicheskie menshinstva Gruzii: potentsial integratsii na primere armianskogo naseleniia strany, Erevan, 2006.
See: “Kogressmeny SShA obsudili s Saakashvili vopros Javakhka,” available at [http://www.yerkirmedia.am/
act=news&lan=ru&id=5072], 3 February 2012.
For more detail, see: I. Khaindrava, “Religiia v Gruzii: XXI vek,” in: Religiia i politika na Kavkaze. Materialy mezhdunarodnoy konferentsii, Kavkazskiy Institut SMI, Erevean, 2004.
According to the new rules, those religious organizations that had historical contacts with Georgia or the status of a religious organization in one of the countries of the Council of Europe were registered as legal entities.
See: “Prezindenty Gruzii i Armenii vruchili nagrady pobediteliam pervoy armiano-gruzinskoy shkolnoy olimpi-ady,” available at [http://www.panarmenian.net/rus/society/news/60097/], 23 January, 2011.
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