Saakashvili Can’t Imagine Georgia Without Armenian, Azerbaijani Culture

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, meeting with 60 Armenian and Azerbaijani graduates yesterday, expressed satisfaction that Georgia was able to implement a special program that introduces quotas for ethnic minorities, reports Georgia Online. 

Under this new program, Armenians and Azerbaijanis living in Georgia were able to pass admission exams in their native language this year. 

“The program can be considered successful, since instead of 3 students, who were admitted last year, 254 graduates successfully passed their exams this year; they will learn Georgian in the course of one year, and then later they’ll have the option of studying in their preferred higher educational institution,” said the Georgian leader. 

Saakashvili also noted that a few dozen Armenian and Azerbaijani graduates this year were able to submit their exams in the Georgian language.

“This is a very important issue, because all of our country’s citizens must have equal rights. Georgia doesn’t belong to Georgians, neither to Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Ossetians, the Abkhaz, [or] Russians, [but rather], it belongs to all of us, regardless of ethnicity.”

“But learning the Georgian language doesn’t mean that you have to lose your national culture. That is part of our culture, one can’t imagine Georgian culture without Armenian, Azerbaijani, Abkhaz or Ossetian cultures,” said the Georgian leader to the graduates.