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Press conference held in Baku on outcomes of GUAM Parliamentary Assembly 5th meeting

20 December 2012 11:15 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Mubariz Aslanov – APA. A press conference on the outcomes of the 5th meeting of GUAM Parliamentary Assembly has been held at the Azerbaijani Parliament, APA reports. Responding to the journalists’ questions at the press conference GUAM Secretary General Valeri Chechelashvili said that Georgia would take over GUAM PA presidency from Azerbaijan next year.

For this reason, the 6th meeting of the organization is planned to be held in Tbilisi next year. Informing about the organization’s priorities during their chairmanship, head of the Georgian delegation, vice-speaker of the parliament Zurab Abashidze said that they will function towards further deepening of comprehensive relations between the member states, creation of transport corridor, development of economic relations, ensuring of energy security, setting of legislation database and observations in the presidential elections in the member states.

Responding to the journalists’ questions vice president of the Baltic Assembly, Raimonds VÄ“jonis said that the Nagorno Karabakh, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Transnistria and other conflicts must be solved through the peaceful negotiations.

He regretted that there are no serious improvements in the solution of the conflicts.

“It is difficult to achieve improvements in a peaceful way, it takes much time. But we reiterate that the abovementioned conflicts should be solved peacefully. There is no second way of solution, the other variants are out of question,” he said.

GUAM Secretary General Valeri Chechelashvili noted that these issues must be solved peacefully within the territorial integrity of the countries on the basis of international legal norms: “Though this way is long and difficult, there is no other way.”

Asked for the question on extension of GUAM geography Chechelashvili said that the issue on membership is open: “If the countries, which agree to the proposals and principles of this organization, appeal, this issue can be considered. In this case, our main goal is to deepen the relations between the four member states – Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova.”