President Sarkisian Kicks off Georgia Visit

TBILISI (RFE/RL)-President Serzh Sarkisian on Tuesday began a two-day official visit to Georgia amid calls from at least one local ethnic Armenian group to address their identity issues at meetings in Tbilisi.
Sarkisian was received by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili at his Palace after which the two sides reportedly signed a raft of agreements, including those concerning cooperation on border issues, standardization and metrology, cooperation between some ministries.
At a joint press conference with Saakashvili following the meeting Sarkisian spoke about "dynamically developing" relations between the two neighboring nations.
"We spoke about all issues. Those are energy, transportation, relations between our parliaments, defense, security at the borders, and these discussions will be continued," the Armenian leader said, according to the Georgian news website Georgia Online.
Both Sarkisian and Saakashvili spoke about regional conflicts, with the Armenian president stressing that solutions to these conflicts are possible only through negotiations.
The Georgian president, for his part, stressed that all conflicts in the Caucasus have been ‘instigated' from outside and again presented his ‘United Caucasus' concept as a way to settle all disputes.
Sarkisian is scheduled to meet with representatives of the Georgian-Armenian community and take part in a Georgian-Armenian business forum slated for Wednesday.
Meanwhile, an organization of local Armenians called the Community of Armenians of Georgia disseminated an open letter on the eve of Sarkisian's visit to Georgia urging the leaders of the two countries to consider also issues that "will promote improved good-neighborly relations between the two peoples." According to the authors of the letter, among these issues are "availability of education in the native [Armenian] languages" for members of the sizable Armenian community, "the return of the property seized from the Armenian Apostolic Church during the Soviet years, the conservation of churches and other buildings and monuments and their transfer to lawful owners."
The organization, according to its press service head Armen Aghajanov, was not on the guest list of the meeting with Sarkisian and chose to publish an open letter instead.
"The most important question is the opportunity to receive education in our native language. The number of Armenian schools in Tbilisi has been decreasing in recent years," Aghajanov said in an interview with RFE/RL's Armenian Service (Azatutyun.am).