On February 14, 1918, he became a Deputy Head and a Foreign Minister in the government of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, a short-lived Armenian-Azerbaijani-Georgian federation. When the Democratic Republic of Georgia proclaimed independence on May 26, 1918, Chkhenkeli assumed the position of Foreign Minister and remained on this post until being replaced with Evgeni Gegechkori in November 1918. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly of Georgia in 1919 and briefly functioned as an emissary to France in January 1921.