Educational exchange programs remain one of the strongest links between two countries. Over the last twenty years, thousands of Georgians have come to the United States for education, and over 3000 Georgians have participated in a U.S. professional or academic exchange programs.

On April 12 a meeting of bilateral working group on democracy in frames of U.S.-Georgian strategic partnership charter will be held, according to the U.S. embassy in Tbilisi. It’s one of those four inter-agency bilateral groups, which were established to address priority areas of the U.S.-Georgia Strategic Partnership Charter, which was signed in January, 2009. Other areas of cooperation identified by the charter are defense and security, economic and people-to-people relations.

Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine will travel to Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia April 8-16, 2013. In Moscow, Russia, April 8-11, Under Secretary Sonenshine will be the keynote speaker at the “Fulbright Program in Russia: 40th Anniversary of Successful Academic Exchanges” conference.

JSC Global Contact Consulting will initiate satellite broadcasting this month, starting with four Free-to-Air channels and progressively expanding to include both Georgian and international channels.

In a recent poll conducted in Georgia by the National Democratic Institute, 68 percent of respondents expressed their approval of a Georgian pledge to reestablish their country’s railway link with Russia via the breakaway region of Abkhazia1.

The U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Bay Fang met with Georgian Minister of Culture Guram Odisharia. The meeting was held at the Ministry of Culture and it was attended by the U.S. ambassador to Georgia Richard Norland, head of the public affairs department of the embassy Michael Turner and culture attaché Lola Petrovac.

Georgia is intended to restore its trade and cultural ties with Russia in the near future, new Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili told reporters.He emphasized that it was very important for Georgia to establish relations with its “Great Neighbor”.