Tbilisi. Non-governmental organizations respond and condemn the xenophobic statement of Salome Zurabishvili, a presidential candidate supported by Georgian Dream.

''On October 2, during the pre-election meeting with local ethnic Armenian citizens in Ninotsminda (Samtskhe-Javakheti region), Zurabishvili stated: ''Till now, citizenship was granted only by the decision of a president. One of the presidents [Mikheil Saakashvili], whose representative is my opponent, granted citizenship to a lot of Turkish people, but did not give a citizenship to you''.

We consider, that the above-mentioned statement of the presidential candidate incites hatred, contradicts the principles of liberal democracy and equality, invokes the historic conflict in the modern Georgian political reality and employs all of it against political opponents'', is noted in the statement.

Source: tdi.ge