Office Of High Commissioner On National Minorities Organizes Meeting

[Kanayan Tamar]

OFFICE OF HIGH COMMISSIONER ON NATIONAL MINORITIES ORGANIZES MEETING IN AKHALKALAKI, GEORGIA

States News Service
December 15, 2014 Monday

OFFICE OF HIGH COMMISSIONER ON NATIONAL MINORITIES ORGANIZES MEETING OF
POLITICAL PARTIES AND MINORITY REPRESENTATIVES IN AKHALKALAKI, GEORGIA

VIENNA, Austria

The following information was released by the Organization for Security
and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE):

The office of the High Commissioner on National Minorities organized
a meeting for representatives of national minorities and political
parties with the aim of supporting dialogue in Akhalkalaki, Georgia on
8 December 2014. Akhalkalaki, in Georgia's Samtskhe Javakheti region,
is densely populated by ethnic Armenians.

The meeting was organized as part of a project on "Multiparty Dialogue
-strengthening the participation of national minorities in political
life", which promotes minorities' participation in public life by
establishing dialogue between minority communities and political
parties. Nine of the main political parties are participating in
the project.

Several minority participants pointed out that even though the Samtskhe
Javakheti region could serve as a model of good integration practice
for the rest of Georgia, many political parties were not fully engaged
in the area.

The project started in September 2014 and will run for two years,
culminating ahead of the parliamentary elections scheduled for 2016.

It was initiated by the High Commissioner on National Minorities,
and is supported by Finland, the Netherlands and the United States,
and is implemented by the South Caucasus office of the Netherlands
Institute for Multiparty Democracy.