“Turkey has in fact declared occupation of Georgia”, with such a loud provocative headline, material recently appeared on the Armenpress website (https://armenpress.am/rus/news/1000479.html). Where is this media heard this statement? And here is where:

“The Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on December 23 during a visit to Tbilisi for the trilateral meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey said that Turkey intends to open a larger number of Turkish schools in Georgia. In Georgia, he attended the opening of a new school of the Education Fund of Turkey”.

Thus, the opening of schools in Georgia by the state education fund of the Turkish Enlightenment “Maarif” Armenpress equates to “occupation”.

As you know, the Turkish state allocates significant funds to support modern education not only in its own country (where the education system is one of the best in the world) but also in other states. Often very far from Turkey. For example, 42 schools of the Maarif Foundation operate in Afghanistan. And now, for many children in this country, such schools are the only way to get a modern school education. Professional teachers are involved in work in schools, new school buildings and dormitories are being built, school laboratories are being equipped. But there is no question of any “Turkish occupation of Afghanistan”.

Meanwhile, according to the official Maarif page (https://turkiyemaarif.org/page/553-maarif-in-the-world-16), the fund currently operates 324 schools in 42 countries (and all of them are logically Armenpress "occupied by Turkey"). Most of the countries where Maarif opened its schools are African countries that are quite far from Turkey but not only.

The Turkish State Fund “Maarif” has opened schools in the USA, Hungary, Belarus, Austria, and other countries, including in very distant Australia.

Interestingly, Belarus, it turns out, is also “under Turkish occupation” since the Maarif school was opened there? And Hungary? And the USA with Australia?

Nevertheless, Armenpress claims that "this fact can be considered nothing more than a peaceful, cultural occupation of Georgia".

Armenpress also scares readers by the fact that “Turkey and Azerbaijan have opened numerous representative offices of their companies, enterprises and various travel agencies in Georgia.

It seems interesting that Tbilisi does not find anything disturbing in this, despite the fact that it has long and very tightly been stuck in the grip of the Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem”.

And what is so “disturbing" in Turkish and Azerbaijani travel agencies? The fact that the flow of tourists is growing, jobs are being created in the tourism sector, the budget receives income.

According to the latest data from the National Tourism Administration in Georgia, in 2019 visits of more than 9.3 million international travelers were recorded, an increase of + 7.1% compared to last year. And this is a great help for the Georgian economy. People find work in their homeland, they don’t migrate. After all, tourists, whatever - Turkish, Russian, Armenian will come, spend money and leave. And the Georgians, whom the tourist flow creates jobs will remain. Or should exclusively Armenian tourists come to Georgia?

“There are clear prerequisites for geopolitical trends directed towards Georgia, as a country of strategic interest to both Ankara and Baku, and Georgia ultimately gains nothing from this interest, and in addition loses a lot”, - “worries” about Georgia Armenpress.

It should be recalled, Armenpress, that if Georgia receives from Turkey and Azerbaijan vital investments and energy, it loses just from the “strategic interest” of Armenia to the Georgian lands.

It was the support of Armenia and the Armenian lobby for separatism that led to the loss by Georgia of Abkhazia (where, after the expulsion of the indigenous Georgian population and the depopulation of Abkhazians, Armenians became the majority) and the Tskhinvali region. The next step is the danger of a separatist “explosion” in Samtskhe-Javakheti, where separatism is fueled by anti-Turkish hysteria from Yerevan.

KavkazPlus