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Georgia Today (9 May 2020)

Beka Aleksishvili

As all relevant media outlets have been covering Saakashvili’s Ukrainian promotion, Georgian PM Gakharia made remarks which appeared only a day after President Zelensky's decision to grant the former Georgian President the post of the Chairman of the Executive Committee on Reforms.

The Georgian administration and specifically the Foreign Ministry have summoned the Georgian Ambassador to Ukraine for consultations.

The PM affirmed that although the Ambassadors will be summoned from Ukraine, it will ‘not mean that we will question our diplomatic relations or strategic partnership with Ukraine’.

The head of the government noted that the Ambassador will only be summoned for ‘consultations’ on "how to protect relations with Ukraine from adventurers."

"The point is, of course, that We - Georgians and Ukrainians - are not only strategic partners but we are also linked by a history of cooperation that spans many years. We will not call into question this strategic partnership and the fraternity that exists between our countries, our peoples, due to individual, irresponsible politicians," he stated.

Gakharia added that it is still incomprehensible when a person convicted of serious crimes by the court of a strategic partner country is appointed, even to the position of advisor.

"It is clear that he was not appointed to a high governmental position but rather as some advisor or the leader of a consultative group, but this is still incomprehensible. We have had a great deal of experience after Odessa - the efforts that we had to expend in order to return the ties between Georgia and Ukraine to the normal framework of the strategic partnership after this incomprehensible affair. I was personally involved in this and I was in Kiev, I held meetings in person. We are recalling the ambassador for consultations only in order for political adventurists not to be able to put our ties with our fraternal and strategic partner at risk, this is of the utmost importance for us," he noted.

As regards the statements of high-ranking Ukrainian officials, saying that this is their country's internal affair, the PM answered the corresponding question by saying that such sentences need to be followed by how they will ensure that Saakashvili will not continue interfering in the internal affairs of other countries in the future.

"I am very curious about how they will stop Mikheil Saakashvili from interfering in Georgia's internal affairs, and we will observe this," he pointed out. 

http://georgiatoday.ge/news/21082/PM%3A-We-will-not-question-our-diplomatic-relations-with-Ukraine