Azernews.Az

Georgia officially started chairing regional group GUAM, a group of four former Soviet republics, on January 1, 2013.

Georgian Foreign Minister Maia Panjikidze said that the country assumed the chairmanship in the international organisation at a meeting of the GUAM Council of Foreign Ministers, which was held in Dublin on the sidelines of the OSCE Ministerial Council on December 7, Trend news agency reported.

Chairmanship in GUAM passed from Azerbaijan to Georgia.

"Georgia will try to expand the organisation during its presidency," she said. "It is expected that South Korea will become a partner-country. We plan to expand relations not only at the level of Foreign Ministers, but also at the level of ministries and parliamentary groups."

GUAM was established in 1997 at the EU summit in Strasbourg. Uzbekistan joined the organization in 1999 but seceded four years later. During the organization's first summit in Kyiv in 2006, a decision was made to announce GUAM an international organization and rename it into the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development - GUAM.