Tbilisi’s “key goal” to ensure peace in South Caucasus with “friendly” Armenia, Azerbaijan - FM

Georgian Foreign Minister Ilia Darchiashvili on Tuesday said his Government's “major goal” was to ensure “peace and stability” in the South Caucasus region with “friendly” nations of Azerbaijan and Armenia through acting as an “unbiased” mediator to resolve their long-running conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. 

Speaking with the Georgian Public Broadcaster, the official claimed Tbilisi was “successfully implementing” the role by pointing to the 2021 deal brokered by Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and the United States official Philip Reeker, which ended up with the release of 15 Armenian prisoners of war by Baku in exchange for receiving from Armenia a map of landmines in the Agdam district of the disputed region. 

Highlighting the “complexity” of the conflict, the FM credited the PM, his “special efforts and personal relations” with the leaders of the neighbourly states to ensure “concrete results” in peace talks, which also saw Armenian and Azerbaijani FMs, Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov, hold their inaugural meeting in Tbilisi last year, and the PMs of both nations featuring at Tbilisi Silk Road Forum last month. 

Responding to the question on the potential delivery of armoured vehicles from France to Armenia via Georgia, the FM stressed Tbilisi allowed both nations to use its transit routes “equally”, and added “any country has the right to have a defence force, and when it comes to conventional equipment or weapons permitted by international agreements, any state has the right to acquire it”. 

Tbilisi’s position is to give both countries the opportunity to use the transit function that our country has under equal conditions. Thus, this is our response on the topic and any other insinuations are unnecessary”, Darchiashvili noted. 

The Minister also said the Government had “no plans” to get involved in the 3+3 talks - a regional peace format proposed by Ankara in 2020 with the engagement of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Russia and Iran. 

Speaking about Ukraine, Darchiashvili stressed Georgia's “solidarity” with the country amid its ongoing defence from Russia was “very clear and will continue in the future”.