Interfax: Georgia intends to return lost territories peacefully – Ivanishvili

(Interfax – TBILISI, May 15, 2013) Georgia will do everything to restore relations with “the big neighbor”, Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili said in an interview with Euronews TV company reported partially by local mass media outlets on Wednesday.

“The current state of the relations between Georgia and Russia is not in anybody’s interests. Georgia lost 20% of its territory and we will do everything to return it,” Ivanishvili said.

Ivanishvili said that the new authorities will achieve this peacefully and through talks. “Violence and armed conflict are unacceptable for us. So, I will repeat once again – we will achieve the goal peacefully. We hope that the international community will help us with this issue and we will have its support,” he said.

“We have to do everything to rectify relations with our brothers – Ossetian and Abkhaz people and Russians of course,” the Georgian prime minister said.

Ivanishvili said that the investigation of the 2008 Russian-Georgian conflict, which Saakashvili called “the Russian scenario,” was normal. “This is Saakashvili’s strategy to accuse Russia of everything he does not like,” he said.

When asked whether Georgia could enter NATO in the coming 10 years, Ivanishvili said that this was quite a long period. “I think that this issue will be resolved quicker. We should also take into account the dynamics of changes in the world. The world changes, everything changes. So in a year or two Russia could possibly change and rectify relations with NATO,” the Georgian prime minister said.