Epress.am News from Armenia
“Georgian officials in Tbilisi and Akhalkalaki, as well as local community leaders and political activists, have confirmed that the Russian government has funded radical ethnic-Armenian nationalists in Samtskhe-Javakheti in a bid to destabilize this mutli-ethnic, politically fragile region,” reads a leaked cable (07TBILISI1732) recently released by WikiLeaks and sent by the US Embassy in Tbilisi dated July 20, 2007.
The cable notes that tensions “peaked” in spring 2006 when “scattered violent demonstrations occurred in Akhalkalaki in March (ref K), following the murder of an ethnic Armenian in the city of Tsalka, and on May 2 (ref J), when protesters briefly halted the first stage of Russian base withdrawal. As the withdrawal moved ahead, disturbances in Akhalkalaki dropped off precipitously, lending credence to Georgian allegations that the tensions were being stoked by elements operating from within the Russian base,” reads the section of this cable titled “Support for Minority Extremists.”