Day: May 14, 2025
Georgian Dream Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili participated in the 134th session of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, held in Luxembourg on May 13-14. The session was convened at the invitation of Xavier Bettel, Chairman of the Committee of Ministers, Vice-Prime Minister of Luxembourg. Botchorishvili met with Sabine Monauni, Deputy Prime Minister of Liechtenstein and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Environment, and Culture.
Several European leaders answered Georgian online media Euroscope’s questions regarding the situation in the country, following the meeting.
Xavier Bettel voiced disappointment over Georgia’s current political trajectory. “The day we decided that they [Georgia] should have a European future, they decided to go backwards,” Bettel said. “We need to be honest with them [Georgian Dream] that if they go the wrong way, they will go further of a European future than it was the moment of last year. That’s my personal opinion.”
Alain Berset, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, also reflected critically on recent developments in Georgia. Recalling his visit to the country last December, Berset noted that the intention had been to engage all political stakeholders and support Georgia’s alignment with European values. He said that following the EU granting a candidate status to Georgia, “all the evolution that we witnessed in the recent months was a bad one, was not in a good direction.”
Berset added that the CoE’s team in Tbilisi is working through an action plan to support the European aspirations of the Georgian people, and to renew the dialogue between the political parties, “to have a structured dialogue, to be able to speak on all points, knowing that it’s not going in the right direction.”
He noted that the next 12 months will be decisive in determining Georgia’s path. “We want to have more convergence for the values, for democracy and rule of law,” Berset emphasized.
Ian Borg, Malta’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Tourism, expressed support for Berset’s engagement with Georgia. He added that “Georgia and its people need to be supported in order to reform and decide what they want for their country’s future. So we look forward to work together, even though we know it’s not easy.”
Meeting with Luxembourg’s Deputy PM
Botchorishvili held a meeting with Sabine Monauni, Deputy Prime Minister of the Principality of Liechtenstein and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Environment, and Culture. MFA reported that the parties discussed “the friendly bilateral relations and cooperation between the two countries within multilateral formats,” and global and regional security challenges.
According to the Ministry, Botchorishvili “briefed the Deputy Prime Minister of Liechtenstein on the situation in the occupied territories and underscored the importance of keeping the issue of Georgia’s occupation high on the Council of Europe’s agenda.”
Also Read:
- 11/04/2025 – GD FM Botchorishvili Attends Delphi Economic Forum
- 24/03/2025 – GD FM Botchorishvili Visits Hungary
- 27/02/2025 – GD FM Botchorishvili Visits Turkey
- 25/02/2025 – GD FM Botchorishvili Meets UN Secretary-General, Addresses Human Rights Council
The Abkhaz language in neural networks
Since 2024, the Abkhaz language has been added to Google Translate, and work is now underway on the Common Voice platform. It is expected that this will allow people to speak Abkhaz with neural networks and various voice assistants in the future.
According to Levan Lagulaa, executive director of the charity foundation working on digitizing the Abkhaz language, the quality of translation in Google Translate is still far from perfect, but the first stage of the project has already been completed.
On May 12, the foundation presented a project for the voice digitization of the Abkhaz language, aimed at integrating it into voice technologies, applications, and translators.
“Additionally, the Abkhaz language is also featured on the Mozilla Common Voice platform. Around 400 people have already recorded their voices, and the platform now contains a million sentences in Abkhaz.
Each user can voice sentences displayed on the screen, which helps develop the Abkhaz language and makes it more functional.
These developments can be used in other platforms, neural networks, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
We are confident that the Abkhaz language has a bright future, and its potential will continue to unfold with each such technological project,” says Levan Lagulaa.
A key aspect of the project is providing it as open-source, allowing programmers and developers worldwide to use these developments.
The digitization of the Abkhaz language is being carried out not only by the mentioned foundation (named after the classic of Abkhaz literature Bakur Shinkuba) but also by individual enthusiasts.
For example, student Miron Baratelia created a chatbot on Telegram, and according to Levan Lagulaa, the quality of translation from Abkhaz to Russian and vice versa on this platform exceeds that of Google Translate.
“Such projects will give the Abkhaz language the opportunity to be actively represented in the digital world. This means it can be used in any social network and in applications like ChatGPT and others,” says Lagulaa.
In his opinion, this will provide teachers, tutors, and regular users with broader access and opportunities, and eventually lead to the creation and voice-over of books, cartoons, films, dubbing, and the development of educational materials.
“Anyone involved with the Abkhaz language, whether they are residents of Abkhazia or foreigners, will have easy and simple access to learning and using the language,” predicts Lagulaa.
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