Chairman of Multi-National Georgia NGO Arnold Stepanyan does not share the views that the Armenians living in Georgia's Javakheti region will claim independence if the country joins NATO.
Georgia Online quotes Stepanyan as saying that those saying that if Georgia joins NATO, Turkey will create a military base in Javakheti are simply incompetent.
"NATO has no practice of creating coalition military bases in its member states. If Georgia joins NATO, its troops will automatically turn into allied forces. I see no grounds for saying that Georgia's NATO membership will be bad for the Javakheti Armenians. Those claiming such things must just be trying to make the Javakheti Armenians a small coin in somebody's big game. There lots of countries, including Turkey, who are NATO members and are homes to large Armenian communities and the latter feel no discomfort about this," Stepanyan said.