The South Caucasus Countries and the Crimean Platform 

| News, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia

As part of his official visit to Ukraine, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili attended the August 23 summit of the Crimean Platform, which brings together the leaders of more than 40 countries.

At the summit, Garibashvili said that the creation of the Crimean Platform is a "unique opportunity to condemn the atrocities committed by the occupying powers against our peoples." "We must remind the world that Crimea belongs to Ukraine," Garibashvili said.

Garibashvili said Russia had "occupied two indivisible regions of Georgia, undermining European security and the rule of law."

"Thirteen years ago, the Russian Federation launched a large-scale military assault against Georgia, killing hundreds of civilians and military personnel and burning and reducing to rubble dozens of Georgian villages, triggering another wave of ethnic cleansing that forced hundreds of thousands of ethnic Georgians to flee their homes. Later, in 2014, Ukraine met the same fate.... If the conflicts in the region are not resolved, the West will inevitably face ever new sources of destabilization," Garibashvili said.

Unlike Georgia, Armenia, which is closely allied with Russia both militarily and politically, did not participate in the Crimea platform, as expected. Azerbaijan was also represented only by the chairman of the GUAM organization, although Turkey's head of state, Erdogan, attended the platform as Azerbaijan's closest ally. From the German side, Peter Altmaier, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, traveled to Ukraine to participate in the official part of the Crimea Platform kick-off summit.

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