President appoints seven new ambassadors

The President of Georgia Giorgi Margvelashvili has appointed new ambassadors to seven countries including Iran, Japan, Jordan, Bulgaria, China, Germany and Uzbekistan, according to the Georgian foreign Ministry.

Professor Dr. H.c. Lado Chanturia, a long-time scientific contributor to research projects run by KEEL at the University to Kiel Institute for Eastern European Law, has been appointed as the Ambassador of Georgia in Germany. Chanturia was Minister of Justice 1998-1999 and served as Chairman of Supreme Court 1999-2004; he also was a Georgian Presidents adviser until 2007.

Zurab Beridze, who has been appointed Georgian ambassador to Bulgaria, served as ambassador to Romania and Moldovain 2004-2008.

Konstantin Zhgenti is now the Georgian ambassador to Uzbekistan. Zghenti is the former Ambassador of Georgia to Austria in 2004-2005 and Hungary.

Levan Tsintsadze will be Georgias ambassador to Japan.Previously, he served as the director of the Foreign Ministrys Department for International Economic Relations.

David Aptsiauri has been appointed Georgian ambassador to China. He was Georgian ambassador to the Republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in 2004-2007.

Grigol Tabatadze has been appointed as ambassador to Jordan.This appointment will be affective from February, 2014. In 2009-2010, he was the Georgian ambassador to Armenia. He was also the Plenipotentiary in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, the UAE.

Ioseb Chakhvashvili became the Georgian ambassador to Iran. He served as ambassador to Turkmenistan and Afghanistan since 2009.

Tedo Jafaridze, a Georgian politician and diplomat was nominated as the ambassador to United Kingdom but he refused at the last moment, according to Maia Panjikidze, the Foreign Minister of Georgia Minister.

"We would like to appoint the Japaridze as the ambassador in UK but he made the other decision that why we have nominated another candidate, Panjikidze said not specified the name of the new candidate.

After the new constitution went into force on November 17, President has the right to appoint or dismiss ambassadors upon nomination by the government. Previously, the parliament's consent was required for appointing the ambassadors.

Presently, Georgia has 59 diplomatic missions abroad.