Foreign

Home page

Foreign

Georgian capital hosts 1st EUâ€“ Eastern Partnership Forum

24 March 2012 15:12 (UTC +04:00)

Tbilisi. Nizami Mammadzadeh â€“ APA. Tbilisi hosted the 1st EUâ€“ Eastern Partnership Forum. The event was organized by the office of State Minister of Georgia on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration and the Institute for Eastern Studies, Poland.

State Minister of Georgia on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Giorgi Baramidze delivered keynote speech at the forum. Representatives of the legislative and executive authorities of the member states and the countries of the Eastern Partnership, NGOs, international media, the business community and independent experts participated at the event.

The forum included 4 sessions on different topics. The first session was devoted to â€œTrade and investment in the Eastern Partnership countriesâ€, the second session â€“ â€œRegulation of conflicts in the Eastern Partnership countriesâ€, the 3rd session â€“ â€œLiberalization of visa regimeâ€ and the 4th session â€“ â€œModern education on the Eastern Partnership countriesâ€.

Delivering speech at the forum, member of Armenian delegation proposed to provide direct access and egress by the EU to Nagorno Karabakh in order to solve the problems of Nagorno Karabakh nation. Representative of Azerbaijani embassy seriously protested this proposal. It was stated that adoption of this proposal would be estimated as a violation of the principle of territorial integrity supported by the EU: â€œAny expression on â€œNagorno Karabakh nationâ€ is unacceptable. Only 2 categories of nation is considered when we speak about the living on the occupied territories â€“ Azerbaijanis, who became displaced persons as a result of the conflict and Armenian community, living in this territory and use of any other expression is unacceptable here.

Azerbaijani embassy told APA that protest of Azerbaijani representative was accepted by the event participants.

Georgian PM Nika Gilauri summarized the work of the Forum.