YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 20, NOYAN TAPAN. The joint press conference of the Armenian and Georgian Foreign Ministers Edward Nalbandian and Grigol Vashadze was dedicated to summing up the results of the Georgian Foreign Ministry delegation's visit to Yerevan. The Ministers said that issues regarding bilateral political, economic, and cultural cooperation were discussed during the meeting. In particular, they had discussed processes of fulfillment of agreements reached as a result of Armenian and Georgian Presidents' meeting last September and as a result of Armenian-Georgian Intergovernmental Commission's December 2008 sitting. "We attach much importance to economic cooperation with Georgia. Armenia is among the countries extremely interested in a stable Georgia. And not because the most part of our commodity flow goes through Georgia and our diaspora of more than 300 thousand people lives there, but because our two countries are connected by centuries-old brotherhood and traditional cooperation ties," Nalbandian stated. It was reported that Days of Georgian Culture will be held in Armenia in March, at that, the very Georgian Foreign Minister Vashadze will head the Georgian delegation. And Edward Nalbandian will visit Tbilisi in April at the invitation of his Georgian counterpart. With regard to the latest developments in the Samtskhe-Javakheti Georgian region populated with Armenians Vashadze stated that two citizens of Georgia were arrested for the crime they committed. According to him, Georgians could be also arrested in their place: national belonging plays no role here. "There is no problem of Javakheti, like in the whole Georgia there are socio-economic problems there. That region is one of the regions of Georgia, and the latter is in an extremely hard situation after the war with Russia. If someone thinks that people live better in Kutaisi, it is not so, on the contrary, they often live worse," the Georgian Foreign Minister stated. According to him, just the process of Armenians' integration in Georgia goes on not so quickly as the Georgian Armenians and the government of Georgia would like it. "Georgian government's goal is to protect the rights of all peoples living in Georgia," Grigol Vashadze stated. Both Ministers assured that there are no problems the two countries' governments could not solve in cooperation.

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