University applicants living in Abkhazia who were unable to take their entrance exams after the closure of the Enguri (Ingur) crossing will be admitted to without exams.
The Abkhazian authorities temporarily closed the only crossing that remains open between Abkhazia and Georgia’s western Samegrelo Region on 27 June, in response to anti-Russia protests in Tbilisi. As a consequence, many students living in Abkhazia who had applied to university in Georgia were unable to show up for their exams.
Some succeeded in circumventing the crossing and at least one sustained injuries from barbed wires.
The Abkhazian authorities said they closed the border because of ‘provocative mass demonstrations in Georgia, including in Zugdidi region, which also affected the statehood of the Republic of Abkhazia’.
Demonstrators have gathered outside the Georgian Parliament almost daily for over a month demanding that Interior Minister Giorgi Gakharia resign over the violent dispersal of protesters on 21 June.
Georgia’s education programme for Abkhazia and South Ossetia
On Wednesday, Georgian Education Minister Mikheil Batiashvili announced that ‘every applicant who signed up and expressed a will to continue their studies’ but was ‘fully or partially deprived of this right’ would be enrolled in the programmes they had chosen.
Under a new programme developed by Georgia’s ministries of education and reconciliation, the state will also cover 100% of their tuition fees.
The Education Ministry told OC Media that 170 applicants from Abkhazia had registered for the exams.
In order to continue their education, students from Abkhazia enrolled under the new conditions will have to earn at least 60 academic credits in their first year or face expulsion.
The Education Ministry has also announced that they are working on new mechanisms to encourage prospective students living in Abkhazia and South Ossetia to apply, and said amendments to the Law on Higher Education would be implemented for the 2019–2020 academic year.
According to the Ministry, state coverage of university tuition fees, as well as coverage for university preparation courses for students from Abkhazia and South Ossetia, will continue next year.
For ease of reading, we choose not to use qualifiers such as ‘de facto’, ‘unrecognised’, or ‘partially recognised’ when discussing institutions or political positions within Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and South Ossetia. This does not imply a position on their status.
Georgian Dream has firmly denied claims they are considering forming a confederate state with Abkhazia and South Ossetia — after 50 days of avoiding the clarification.
On Sunday, Georgian Dream’s parliamentary leader, Mamuka Mdinaradze, voiced frustration at what he called ‘anti-national rumours’ about the alleged plan.
Taking his frustration to Facebook, Mdinaradze declared that ‘Georgia will never question its territorial integrity!’
‘No recognition or other anti-national issues are unde
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that Russia is ready to help Georgia ‘normalise relations’ with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, a statement that was met with positivity by the ruling Georgian Dream party.
In response to a reporter’s question about Georgian relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia during a press conference at the UN General Assembly on Saturday, Lavrov said that ‘if there is an interest in the normalisation of these relations, in order to ensure non-aggression a
The Abkhazian Parliament has ratified an agreement with Russia on recognising and enforcing court rulings in economic cases.
The draft law ‘on the Ratification of the Agreement between the Republic of Abkhazia and the Russian Federation on the Recognition and Enforcement of Judicial and Arbitration Decisions in Economic Cases’ was introduced to the parliament by Batal Ayba, the parliamentary secretary of Abkhazian President Aslan Bzhaniya.
‘Ratification will contribute to the development of
Abkhazia’s State Museum has closed its modern history wing after the Russian Embassy reportedly demanded the removal of a photo of Chechen rebel commander Shamil Basayev.
On Tuesday, the Russian Embassy in Abkhazia told RBK that they had submitted a complaint to Abkhazia about the photo, and that the museum intended to ‘rectify the current situation as soon as possible’.
The complaint comes at a low point of relations between Abkhazia and Russia, and follows Russia’s decision to cut fundi
