International election observers are already arriving in Georgia for the coming parliamentary elections, authorities said on Monday.

Some of a 25-member Open Democracy Society mission already arrived while others of the same mission will be arriving in the South Caucasus country in a week or 10 days. Open Democracy Society is an America-based organization.

The Georgian foreign ministry have sent out official invitations to international observers for both of the country's scheduled parliamentary elections and presidential election. The parliamentary elections will be held in October this year while the presidential election is slated for next year.

Georgian Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze late last week sent out invitations to the parliamentary assembly of the GUAM organization for it to send monitors to observe the upcoming parliamentary elections in Georgia.

GUAM consists of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova.

Vashadze also sent invitations to the Organization for Democracy and Democratic Development and the permanent secretariat of the Community of Democracies for election observers.

Early last month, the Georgian foreign ministry sent invitations to the OSCE's office for democratic institutions and human rights, the OSCE parliamentary assembly, the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly, the NATO parliamentary assembly, the European Parliament and other EU institutions.

The invitations were sent with the instruction from the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili.

The Georgian foreign ministry has stressed that it was unprecedented in electoral practices to send out invitations to international observers seven months before the scheduled elections.

Long-term observation missions are usually deployed six to eight weeks before the elections.

International observers started monitoring missions five weeks before Georgia's last parliamentary elections in 2008.

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