The incidents in Tsalka should be rated as malicious hooliganism, Georgian Ambassador to Armenia Revaz Gachechiladze stated when responding to PanARMENIAN.Net reporter’s question. In his words, the killing of 23-year-old Gevorg Gevorgyan should be referred to everyday life. “I do not think State Minister Georgy Khaindrava was right to rate the killing as criminal disorder. Young people drank, fought and this ended in a tragedy. Those guilty were arrested and will be punished according to the law,” he said. At the same time he noted that 150-200 murders are committed in Georgia every year for social and economic motives. “In Armenia the number of murders is much smaller. It is clear. Your country is mono-ethnic. The population of Georgia is multinational and conflicts are inevitable. Swans, Adjarians, Georgians and Turks live in Tsalka besides Armenians. Presently some 1800 people of Tsalka live beyond social control. These are young people, who do not obey the elders. Collisions are always possible in such a region. I would not condition the tension in Javakhk by political motives. The social-economic factor plays the major role here. The Georgian authorities do not pursue a purposeful ethnic policy targeted at displacement of Armenians from Javakhetia,” the Georgian Ambassador said.
Revaz Gachechiladze also noted that other national minorities in Georgia, Azeris for example live in worse social-economic conditions. “We cannot resolve all the problems at once and we cannot engage with the Javakhk problem only ignoring the other regions,” Gachechiladze said. To remind, in the air of Shant TV Channel Georgian State Minister for Migration Affairs Georgy Khaindrava said “the killing in Tsalka is the result of a criminal disorder which won’t tell on the Armenian-Georgian relations.
