OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities Rolf Ekeus arrived in Tbilisi last evening. According to the information provided by “Commersant” Moscow newspaper, he will stay in Georgia till February 9 and will inspect the areas where Armenians compactly live. The main goal of the Commissioner’s visit is to study the situation in Samtskhe-Javakhetia, where the population is predominantly Armenian. As it is known, Armenians make nearly 100% of the total population of Akhalkalaki and Ninotsminda regions. Rolf Ekeus will meet with Akhalkalaki Mayor and representatives of the Armenian community. The OSCE representative also plans to hold negotiations with Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, Speaker of Parliament Nino Burjanidze and Minister on Extraordinary Situations Malkhaz Kakabadze. Rolf Ekeus intends to visit the Armenian schools, a hospital and other public institutions in the region. In the course of the visit he will be accompanied by OSCE observers, who have already been working in the region for several months. “Commersant” emphasizes that OSCE interest towards Samtskhe-Javakhetia region is due to the obligation undertaken by Georgia while joining the Council of Europe to repatriate tens of thousand Turk-Meskhetians within next few years. As it is known they had evicted from Samtskhe-Javakhetia in 1944 by Stalin and the reasons of both Armenian and Georgian populations of the region, who are seriously worried with the prospect of moving Turks there, are quite comprehensible.
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