Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili claims that there are no negotiations between the Georgian and Russian authorities.
According to him, the recent decisions made by Russia regarding Georgia are unilateral and the Georgian government did not intervene in them.
Papuashvili thus answers the opposition MPs, who claim that taking into account the recent events, it is obvious that there is a very active and secret communication between the authorities of Georgia and Russia.
“There is no talk of any negotiations. Here we are talking about unilateral decisions made by Russia alone. Georgia has not made any decision here, visa obligation was imposed unilaterally for Georgian citizens, and this obligation was unilaterally removed,” he said.
On the news about sea traffic, according to Papuashvili, the information being spread is fake.
“It was fake news spread by Droa and Elena Khoshtaria, based on different information sources. This is an ordinary fake, we are not talking about any maritime traffic. It is said that this was the transportation of commercial cargo by a ship that fully belonged to Armenia. Georgia is a participant of the international convention, which implies that a country is obliged to give full free access to the sea to a landlocked country. You know that Armenia is a land-locked country with no access to the sea. It is our obligation under the international convention, in addition to our bilateral obligations regarding Armenia, so that this country has free access to the Black Sea. It was a shipment that was in full transit – the ship was not under sanctions, nor under the Russian flag, nor was the cargo sanctioned,” Papuashvili said.
On the visit of the Russian Foreign Minister’s family members and relatives to Georgia and the journalist’s question, “how did the police protect Lavrov’s family, is there evidence that informal negotiations are underway between the Georgian and Russian authorities?”, Papuashvili answered:
“This is speculation. Sometimes from the media, sometimes from opposition politicians, sometimes from non-governmental organizations, we have heard such an assessment that the Georgian police was protecting Russian citizens from Georgians, and this was presented in a negative context. That is exactly the promotion of xenophobia. What was happening there, at that hotel – we saw that it was an aggressive group of the National Movement that rushed there to organize an disturbance. The obligation of the police is not the protection of Georgians, but the protection of people. If someone thinks that it is the duty of the police to protect or not protect people based on ethnicity, that person is a xenophobe. The task of the police is to protect human health, life and safety.
“On the live broadcast, we saw an aggressive group of the National Movement, which came there to create a commotion. No one knows what would happen, who would be hurt and what would happen to whom. Therefore, the police were obliged to prevent the endangermet of people. All people are valuable, people do not differ by ethnic characteristics. I am surprised by these assessments, this is a push towards xenophobia, to say who will be protected and who will not be protected by ethnic characteristics,” said Papuashvili.
