Georgian president: Abkhazia, S. Ossetia should benefit from Georgia's European course
TBILISI. Feb 21 (Interfax) - Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili has reaffirmed that Tbilisi intends to resolve problems related to the country's territorial integrity in an exclusively peaceful way.
In presenting his first annual report at the Georgian parliament on Friday, Margvelashvili said Georgia's territorial integrity problem should be resolved "in an exclusively peaceful way and by diplomatic means."
The residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia should have the opportunity "to directly benefit from Georgia's European course," he said.
Simultaneously with the restoration of relations, the populations of Abkhazia and South Ossetia should be involved in "joint economic, trade, educational and humanitarian projects with the European Union," Margvelashvili said.
Georgia invites the Abkhazians and South Ossetians to live in a united European state, he said.
"We offer a European country and life in a free, developed, democratic and peaceful state, which would be a guarantor of their rights, freedom of religion, and the preservation of their ethnic identity and their political rights," he said.
Margvelashvili called on Sukhumi and Tskhinvali "not to go against the vital interests of their peoples and not to try to put up new barriers to relations between peoples bound by centuries-old common statehood."