Exclusive interview of Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili to Mediamax

On January 17, Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili will pay his first visit to Armenia. On the eve of the visit, he gave an exclusive interview to Mediamax agency.

- Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for your readiness to answer our questions. How do you assess the current state of Armenian-Georgian relations? What do you think needs to be improved?

- Thank you for  your interest. Armenia and Georgia have a huge potential for the development of their cooperation. First of all, we should assess these options and work out a new multi-channel strategy for developing the cooperation. I am not sure that the resources have been studied enough. New approaches to the development of our bilateral relations and our joint participation in international formats are needed.

Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili.

Photo: http://i1.mail.com

- Armenia is isolated from regional energy and transport projects which are implemented with participation of Georgia and Azerbaijan. Do you see any opportunity for changing the situation and involving Armenia?

- South-Caucasian cooperation should develop in all the spheres. Of course, we should strive to build common economic area covering all the region. We should focus on new approaches in Caucasian regional policy, create new joint projects of both bilateral and multilateral character.

Naturally, we should create conditions for conflict settlement across our whole region. It will create prerequisites for development of the economic cooperation. Development of environmental cooperation, our shared space, is of special importance.

- Shortly after “Georgian Dream”’s victory at the Georgian parliamentary elections there was a talk about the prospects of resumption of the Abkhazian sector of the railway which faded away, though. Are you ready to discuss this prospect before the political settlement of the Abkhazian issue?

-We all are ready for discussion of both problematic and promising issues. It's more important that all the sides involved in the process were ready. We are in nonstandard conditions and the search for innovative approaches to settlement of the current problematic issues is needed.

Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili.

Photo: http://gdb.rferl.org/

- For clear reasons, Armenia supports the peoples self-determination principle and Georgia backs the principle of territorial integrity. Does it create problems in the relations of the two countries?

- I don't see any contradictions between the two principles.

The Georgian side is interested in speedy settlement of conflicts in South Caucasus. Georgia supports shared principles of territorial integrity and sovereignty of each state.

As for the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Georgia supports the settlement of the conflict only in a peaceful way, based on the norms and principles of international law.

More active participation of the international community is mandatory for the process of the conflict settlement.

- In spring 2011, in his interview to our agency, then - oppositional politician and currently  member of your team, Vice Prime Minister and Defense Minister Irakli Alasania expressed the wish to have more Armenian politicians in Georgia. "Georgia will only benefit from it", he noted. Is your government ready to encourage Georgian Armenians to more active participation in political processes?

- Georgian citizens should be more active irrespective of their ethnic descent. We support strengthening of integration processes. At the same time, we should overcome the current hindrances. Historically, Georgian Armenians took part in ruling the country and were good Georgian politicians. And now there are politicians who are of Armenian descent and many of them are represented in the parliament and the Georgian government. I know that there are Armenian politicians who come from various Georgian regions in Armenia as well.

Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili.

Photo: http://cdn.theatlantic.com/

- Over past several years, Armenia and Georgia have argued over the belonging of a number of churches in Tbilisi. And while the sides are disputing churches are being destroyed or are close to destruction. In early January particularly, we visited Tbilisi and saw that cracks on the facade of Norashen church have become substantially bigger over the past years and the church may come down at any time. What do you think of the ways of settling this issue?

- All the monuments on Georgia's territory are protected by the state. It should be noted that over many years, Georgia has paid special attention to the issues of preserving cultural and architectural heritage. However, we are going to boost investments in this area - both state and off-budget ones. We should not argue but work over preserving our cultural heritage which is a shared spiritual and economic resource.

- Though it's only 5-hour drive from Yerevan to Tbilisi, citizens of the two countries, especially young people, don't know about each other much.  Such a situation provides a fertile ground for strengthening mutual fears and stereotypes and creating new myths. What do you think the Armenian and Georgian politicians may do to boost ties between common people?

- I fully share your standpoint. I think first of all, we should boost development of youth tourism. Our university community has a great role in this process. This area should be paid much attention to and relevant ministries should create a new vision of development of cooperation between our citizens. At the same time, I don't think we should limit ourselves to the age categories. We should demonstrate special care toward the elderly, pensioners and create conditions for development of  regional tourism.