The delegation of the State Agency for Religious Issues, during the visit to the United States, met with the Chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), Stephen Schneck, Director of Research and Policy, Guillermo Cantor, and Policy Analyst, Dylan Schexnayder. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is an organization that prepares reports for the US Congress and the President to assist them in planning religious freedom policy.

Zaza Vashakmadze introduced the representatives of the Commission on International Religious Freedom to the reforms implemented by the Georgian State in the field of human rights and freedom of religion, namely: the practice of transferring religious buildings to religious organizations; financing of various religious organizations from central and local budgets; the activities of the Interreligious Council, uniting the entire religious spectrum of the country and is the most effective means for both direct communication with the State and active cooperation between religious organizations.

Zaza Vashakmadze focused on the facts of discrimination against the ethnic Georgian population remaining in the occupied territories, violations of human rights, including religious right, and the erasure of Georgian traces on churches and monasteries in the occupied A/R of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region. The Chairman of the Agency also touched upon the processes won by the Georgian state against the Russian Federation in the Hague and Strasbourg courts and emphasized the need to elevate the strategic partnership and relations between Georgia and the United States to a higher level.

The Chairman of the Agency also drew attention to the objective reflection of information about Georgia in the recommendations prepared by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom for the US government on international religious freedom issues and the annual reports published about the state of religious freedom in various countries, and to the strengthening of mutual cooperation in this regard.

The hosts thanked the Chairman of the Agency for the information provided. The Chairman of the Commission, Stephen Schnecks, expressed his desire to further deepen communication and future cooperation. He also noted that the Commission, in the event of providing reports on violations of religious freedom in the occupied territories, would necessarily reflect them in the annual reports.

At the end of the meeting, the Chairman of the Agency presented the hosts with the Agency’s publications - "Occupied Heritage" and "Religions in Georgia".

The meeting was attended by Sandro Inashvili, Acting Counselor to the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Georgia to the US, David Davitashvili, Head of the Legal Maintenance Office of the Agency and Aleksandre Shekiladze, Chief Specialist of the Legal Maintenance Office.