A special committee consisting of Georgian and Armenian experts, as well as the local assembly members will be established in Akhalkalaki and will be tasked with assessing possible scenarios under which Armenian, along with the national Georgian language, could be established as a regional language in the Georgian southern region of Samtskhe-Javakheti, reported Noviy Region. A statement pertaining to this decision was also sent to the Georgian government.

The proposal to grant Armenian a status of a regional language was put forward by a member of the Akhalkalaki regional assembly, David Rostakyan. According to Rostakyan, the proposal is drawn based on international minority norms and the Georgian constitution. As the news source cited Rostakyan saying, Georgia’s authorities also assumed this responsibility when they ratified the Framework Convention of the European Union.

Armenians, the third largest minority in Georgia, number over 54 percent of the population in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region. A total of around 267,000 Armenians live in Georgia. 

This information was originally published July 13, 2007(www.nregion.com).