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• From Soviet borders to independent states: Armenia and Georgia are to draw lines between countries

So tell me what is the point of a border guard?????? This is ridiculous what they can't keep a dividing line between the borders. Its obvious that the Georgian side will gradually pushing our borders. There is supposed to be at least some type of control that at least a diving line will be present. ...

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The Armenian-Georgian border which periodically provokes disputes between the two countries requires a new demarcation, since the old one drawn during the Soviet times has no legal force.

Vahe Sargsyan, an expert from the ‘Mitq’ Analytical Center says, international law allows Armenia to draw a new Armenian-Georgian border.

“International law says that any agreement signed during the Soviet period is invalid, because they (the agreements concerning the border) are completely rejected by Georgia, and the newly independent Republic of Armenia has never ratified them either,” says Sargsyan.

Currently the Armenian-Georgian border is the one drawn according to the agreement signed on November 1921, which came into force in 1934. According to the historian, before that many villages, for example, Chanakhchi and Khozhorni were in the territory of the Soviet Armenia.

One of the latest disputes on the Armenian-Georgian border took place in early September, when Georgian border-guards did not allow residents of cross-border Bavra village to visit their meadows insisting that they are Georgian lands.

“This agreement is a nonsense. But the Georgian side violated even that agreement moving forward from the border and entering the territory of independent Armenia, for example, in the sections of Gogavan-Guguti, Privolnoye-Akhkyorpu,” Sargsyan says.

“Every time putting their border sentry posts, Georgians move forward for a couple of meters. Sometimes the Georgian border posts even reach our populated areas, as it has happened in the case with Bavra,” he adds.

This, according to the historian, is the shortcoming of the Armenian side, and it is the result of not being vigilant.

“In all the possible places the current Armenian-Georgian border does not correspond to the one drawn during the Soviet period, it is moved forward in all places. The neutral zone that existed during the Soviet Union has also disappeared. The Armenian posts are set just near residential areas. We unintentionally cede our territories, and Georgians move forward as much as they want, and they illegally occupy our territories.”