After the meeting of the Government, the State Minister of Georgia for Reconciliation and Civic Equality Ketevan Tsikhelashvili held a news briefing and talked about the new peace initiatives. The Government of is going to implement these initiatives in order to improve the humanitarian and socio-economic conditions of people living in Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region / South Ossetia, attain tangible benefits, promote contacts, free movement and relations across the dividing lines, based on mutual interests.

“Today, the Government of Georgia makes an open and determined statement that its peaceful policy is unwavering and the existing challenges are to be dealt with peace, development, principled stance, consistency and concrete steps”, - the State Minister of Georgia for Reconciliation and Civic Equality Ketevan Tsikhelashvili.

She added that the package of draft legislative amendments is a new, proactive and important step in the frames of peace policy of reconciliation and engagement. Its top priority is providing for peace, confidence building between conflict-split communities and care for the population, who is suffering from the gravity of the unresolved conflict on either side of dividing lines on a daily basis".

The package of legislative amendments, which the Government of Georgia submits to the Parliament, covers three main directions:

1. Encourage, expand and simplify trade across dividing lines through creating new opportunities;
2. Create additional opportunities for quality education and simplify access to all levels of education, both internally and internationally;
3. Ease an access to various services and benefits. An important novelty here is an introduction of a status-neutral mechanism of identification with a personal number for the residents of the two regions that does not relate to citizenship but enables to access a range of different services. Apart from it, for those interested, a simplification of establishing a Georgian citizenship as well as certain civil facts is also envisaged.

During her speech Ketevan Tsikhelashvili emphasized the difficult situation in terms of the artificial barriers that are created for the population living on the both sides of dividing lines.

„For 25 years already the conflict remains unresolved. The grave situation since 2008, for 10 years and in everyday life poses serious challenges to the population on either side of artificial dividing lines. The recent tragedy of infringement on the life of a young man, Archil Tatunashvili and the delayed hand-over of his body has been another manifestation of gravity of the situation.

In those tragic days we witnessed once again that the actions alike are aimed at escalating tensions, confrontation and hostility between people, deepening divides and undermining peace approach that in the end targets not only concrete individuals, but puts at risk overall security and peaceful future of everyone, be it Georgian, Abkhazian or Ossetian.

On the one hand, we will never reconcile with actions undermine lives, security and human rights. On the other hand, we will take even more dynamic steps for confidence building and reconciliation between the divided communities taking into account humanitarian needs and pragmatic interests of the population and their strive to peace, development and a better future”, - said the State Minister.