The State Minister for Reconciliation and Civic Equality Ketevan Tsikhelashvili met with the delegation of the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

According to the State Minister, she discussed with the guests important issues related to the human rights situation in the occupied territories and Georgia's civil integration policy.

“We told them that Georgia by many parameters is a very distinctive country in the region. Of course, our aspiration and policy is to ensure that every citizen, regardless of ethnicity, has an equal opportunity to participate in all aspects of the country's life. We have challenges, but I think that we will definitely cope with them. 

We talked specifically about being a country in the region whose 14% of public schools are non-Georgian schools, which is completely proportional to the proportion of non-Georgian population. Representatives of different ethnic groups receive education in their native language. Small group languages ​​have also been introduced in schools. The teaching of seven new languages ​​began. They have the opportunity not only to preserve their identity and culture but also to develop it. Actually, in terms of engagement, the problem today is to improve the state language proficiency, among other issues. We talked about this with them in detail, of course”, - said Ketevan Tsikhelashvili.

According to him, the main challenge of the country is that there are "gray zones" in terms of human rights and these are the occupied territories.

"Here we need a stronger international effort in order to ensure the access of international missions to areas where our fellow citizens, who cannot be guaranteed protection of their rights by the Georgian state due to limited access. The Council of Europe, in the form of reports by the Secretary General, has a very important tool, and of course, we would like this parliamentary committee, the monitoring mission to hear and reflect it in its parliamentary work”, - said Ketevan Tsikhelashvili.