New Culture Minister Appoints Deputies

Freshly-appointed Minister of Culture, Sport and Youth Tea Tsulukiani on March 24 presented Kakha Sikharulidze, Soso Giorgadze, and Ioseb Bagaturia as her deputies.

Kakha Sikharulidze, who will be the First Deputy Culture Minister, is a career diplomat, having served a number of high-ranking posts in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including as First Deputy Minister and Press Speaker between 2004 and 2007. He was the Georgian Ambassador to the Czech Republic in 2006-2007, and the Ambassador to Italy in 2013-2018. According to Culture Minister Tsulukiani, Sikharulidze will continue to focus on international affairs as First Deputy Minister.

Up until now, Soso Giorgadze, a lawyer by profession, was Deputy Justice Minister since 2020. Giorgadze reportedly served at the Ministry of Justice since 2013. At different times, he led the Justice Ministry’s Citizenship and Migration Service and the Public Service Development Agency. In June 2019, he was appointed as the head of the Public Service Hall. Tsulukiani noted that Giorgadze will head youth affairs, while also overseeing sports’ issues. 

Ioseb Bagaturia, also a lawyer by profession, having held various posts in the Justice Ministry, has been Chairman of the National Bureau of Enforcement since 2014. According to Tsulukiani, Bagaturia will be the parliamentary secretary of the Culture Ministry and head the process of creating “a Georgian Culture Code.”

Georgia’s former long-time Justice Minister Tea Tsulukiani was appointed as the Minister of Culture, Sport and Youth on March 19, after the Parliament endorsed splitting the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture, and Sport into two separate bodies earlier.

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