ARTSAKH WAR VETERAN COMMANDERS SEND AN OPEN LETTER TO GEORGIAN PRESIDENT IN WHICH THEY APPEAL TO OFFICIAL TBILISY FOR SOBERNESS

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 12, NOYAN TAPAN - ARMENIANS TODAY. Major-general Arkadi Tadevosian, commander of the Artsakh army in 1992-1993, Arkadi Karapetian, first commander of the Artsakh army, and Zhirayr Sefalian, commander of the Shushi special battalion, sent on December 12 an open letter on behalf of the Artsakh war volunteers to the Georgian President Mikhail Sahakashvili, in which they appeal to the official Tbilisi for soberness.

"The recent reports from Javakhk and other Armenian-populated areas of Georgia are worrying. They are indicative of the fact that the Georgian government has adopted and is implementing a large-scale program on driving the Armenian population out of its cradle. Meeting the natural resistance of the Armenian population, the authorities have tried several times to use power methods," the open letter reads. The authors of the letter underline that further escalation of anti-Armenian actions on the territory of the Georgian state will damage the Armenian-Georgian relations, which could have been much more friendly with the will. The Artsakh war veteran commanders warn that "international experience showed that power methods may lead to undesirable developments."