Saakashvili accuses Ivanishvili team of looking to Russia

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TBILISI. Jan 12 (Interfax) – Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has accused Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili of an attempt to change Georgia’s foreign policy.

At the ceremony for introducing the new governors, which was held in the presidential palace on Saturday, Saakashvili said Ivanishvili in his recent interview had said that he had to “repel” the attacks of the Western world and the U.S. to keep his policies independent.

The prime minister said in an interview with Obyektiv television that the Georgian authorities have managed to keep their policies and increase people’s hopes for “the victory of justice” despite the efforts made by Western politicians and the U.S. to pursue a cohabitation policy.

“This indicates that the prime minister is oriented towards Russia, its spies and agents, whom they are releasing from prison, not at Western values. He is already talking about repelling the attacks of the West, which has always helped Georgia, like it happened when crusaders were standing near our warriors. It’s our path and geopolitical choice, but we are now fully leaving this path,” the president said, reiterating that the amnesty initiated by the Georgian parliament is aimed at increasing the Russian influence in Georgia.

Saakashvili also accused the prime minister and his tea, of “dirty methods” for putting pressure on his supporters.

“They violate citizens’ privacy. The special services existed when I was in office, but personal life was inviolable. They have lured deputies or have tried to do it using dirty methods. They threatened one parliamentarian from the regions to tell his son he was adopted and they planted drugs on another parliamentarian’s son, making him join the parliamentary majority. They are now trying to use pressure, questionings, and fact-rigging to put pressure on Marika Verulashvili, a member of the parliamentary minority. They are pressuring her husband and family members, they are summoning them to questionings and are even trying to lure them to the majority,” Saakashvili said.

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