Russia's Foreign Minister to receive Adjaria's leader

Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Igor Ivanov will receive in the morning on Friday leader of the Adjar Autonomous Republic (Georgia) Aslan Abashidze.

As diplomatic sources said, Aslan Abashidze who simultaneously heads the Democratic Rebirth Union party intends to discuss "the questions of preserving regional stability, specifically in the context of the situation obtaining in Georgia after the past elections".

The other day Aslan Abashidze visited Yerevan and Baku where he met with the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan. The theme of his talks is unknown. In the interview given to Azeri television at Baku airport Abashidze stated that in the course of the six-hour talks with president Ilkham Aliyev he had spoken of the situation in the region and had also discussed the political and economic questions of cooperation of the three Transcaucasian republics.

Mass media's reports that head of the Georgian state Eduard Shevardnadze offered Abashidze the post of chairman of parliament earlier appeared in Tbilisi, though the Georgian president's official representatives deny this.