TBILISI, November 4 (RIA Novosti) Georgia’s president-elect said he would not move to the luxury palace currently occupied by his predecessor and would choose a more modest residence after taking office, News Georgia reported on Monday. “During the electoral campaign, I have repeatedly expressed my disagreement with the size and cost of the presidential residence and said that the […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Helena Bedwell – November 4, 2013) Georgia’s billionaire Premier Bidzina Ivanishvili named a 31-year-old minister as his chosen successor, reinforcing opposition claims that the tycoon would continue running the Black Sea nation from behind the scenes. Ivanishvili, who’s vowed to step down this month after a year in office, said Nov. 2 that he’d nominate Interior […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 1 (Interfax) – Georgia’s newly elected President Giorgi Margvelashvili has announced his readiness to continue working to further ease tensions in relations with Russia, as well as to seek an association agreement with the European Union and object to recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states. Georgia’s relations with the European Union are intensifying today, Margvelashvili […]
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TBILISI. Oct 29 (Interfax) – Outgoing Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, whose term of office expires in November, made a farewell address to the nation from the Presidential Palace on Monday night. “My term of office is coming to an end and this is my last address delivered from the Presidential Palace. I would like to thank you for twice giving […]
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TBILISI. Oct 29 (Interfax) – Georgian Foreign Minister Maia Panjikidze has reiterated that her country may agree to restore diplomatic relations with Russia only if Russia renounces its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states and if it lifts its “occupation” of these territories. “If de-occupation occurs”, and if Russia renounces its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia […]
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BRUSSELS. Oct 29 (Interfax) – Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili told journalists in Brussels on Tuesday that he believes his arrest is among the preconditions for normalization of relations between Moscow and Tbilisi. “As for my personal future, certainly, I have two or three weeks more to finish my presidential term. We have changed everything in this country in ten years. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – October 29, 2013) Despite a complete change of leadership in Georgia sealed in Sunday’s presidential election, Russia and its southern neighbor remain on track only to crawl toward a strained reconciliation, due largely to the legacy of the bitter five-day war that the countries fought in 2008. Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s relentless modernizer […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Molly Corso in Tbilisi – October 25, 2013) With Georgians headed to the polls on October 27, it appears clear that Giorgi Margvelashvili will be the country’s next president. However, second place is nearly as important in this race, with the other candidates needing to draw support for the bitter political fight that will […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Claire Bigg – October 24, 2013) Few leaders have been as polarizing as Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s outgoing president. To some, he is the hero of the “Rose Revolution,” the man who stamped out corruption and raised the country’s international profile. Others see him as an authoritarian leader who cracked down on dissent, persecuted his rivals, and […]
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MOSCOW. Oct 23 (Interfax) – Georgian presidential candidate from the Democratic Movement-United Georgia party and former parliamentary speaker Nino Burjanadze vows that, if she wins the elections on October 27, she will work to normalize relations with Russia and settle the existing problems. “The unsettled relations with Russia pose a real threat to the country’s stability and normal development. My […]
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MOSCOW, October 22 (RIA Novosti) Ukraine and Georgia will not accede to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) next year, its top official said Tuesday, dismissing speculation that two of Russia’s most strategically important neighbors might be joining. Ukraine has decided to abandon its long-standing bid to join NATO, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told journalists in Brussels on […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Helena Bedwell – October 14, 2013) Georgia regained access to Russian markets for its fruit, vegetable and nut exports, seven years after its northern neighbor banned the produce, according to the Black Sea country’s National Food Agency in Tbilisi. Russian inspectors have carried out sanitation checks in Georgia, Giga Kurdovanidze, a spokesman for the agency, said […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Andrew McChesney September 26, 2013) [Video of speech here http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/russias-un-delegation-walks-out-during-saakashvilis-crazy-speech/486649.html] Outgoing Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili assailed Russia as “the last authoritarian empire in the world” during a speech to the UN General Assembly, and predicted that President Vladimir Putin would disappear from Russian politics, prompting the Russian delegation to walk out in protest. Russia’s ambassador […]
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(Interfax – TBILISI, September 24, 2013) U.S. President Barack Obama gave a positive assessment of the activities of his Georgian counterpart Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian president’s administration said. Saakashvili leaves a reformed and democratic society, the administration quoted Obama as saying during a meeting with the Georgian president in New York in a video of the meeting that was posted […]
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(Interfax – TBILISI, September 23, 2013) Special Envoy of the Georgian Prime Minister for Relations with Russia Zurab Abashidze believes that the format of his negotiations with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin is productive and that their dialogue will continue. “We had our fourth meeting last week and we can say that rather complex problems in the restoration of […]
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(Interfax – TBILISI, September17, 2013) Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili believes his country will take another 5-7 years to normalize relations with Russia. “Our relations with Russia are normalizing gradually,” Ivanishvili said in an interview with the French publication Le Point, fragments of which were published in Georgian media on Tuesday. The fact that Russia recently lifted an embargo on […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, August 29, 2013) Russian citizens give a less negative assessment of Russian-Georgian relations than seven years ago, sociologists said following the poll held. Over a third (35-39%) said in 2006 that Russian-Georgian relations were tense and 22% support this stance now. The share of those thinking that the relations of the two countries are hostile decreased from […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Liz Fuller – August 26, 2013) Five years after their formal recognition by the Russian Federation as independent states on August 26, 2008, Georgia’s breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are on very different trajectories in terms of relations with their northern neighbor. But both are plagued by growing domestic political instability. Abkhazia has experienced […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – By Helena Bedwell, Henry Meyer, Hellmuth Tromm – August 26, 2013) Georgia’s outgoing President Mikheil Saakashvili said his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin wants him jailed or dead and urged the U.S. to help curb what he says is Russia’s rising influence over his country. Saakashvili, a 45-year-old American-educated lawyer who allied Georgia with the U.S. after […]
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(Interfax – TBILISI, August 26, 2013) Georgian Reintegration Minister Paata Zakareishvili believes the people of Abkhazia and South Ossetia will make a final choice between Russia and Georgia over the next several years. “We will always give them [the people of Abkhazia and South Ossetia] a chance to choose between a developed Georgia and a Russia of those times. That […]
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(Interfax – TBILISI, August 22, 2013) The Georgian government has extended its contract with the influential lobby and legal firm Patton Boggs, which is headquartered in Washington, DC, until the end of 2013, the Georgian media have reported. Under the contract, Patton Boggs will receive monthly payments of $110,000 for its services, which is $20,000 more than it received before. […]
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(Bloomberg – Lucian Kim – August 18, 2013) Twenty-five miles on the main road west from the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, Russian soldiers argue with a mercenary as refugees trudge along in the summer heat. The scene, reminiscent of the Balkans in the 1990s, is the result of a 10-day conflict over the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia. The […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, August 23, 2013) Around 2.5 million liters of wine have been delivered by Georgia’s enterprises to the Russian market since Russia lifted its ban on Georgian wine imports, Gennady Onishchenko, head of the consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor and Russia’s chief epidemiologist, told Interfax on Friday. “A total of 690 shipments of alcohol products weighing more than 2.4 […]
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(Voice of America – James Brooke, VOA Moscow bureau chief, covering Russia and the former USSR – August 15, 2013) When I first visited Georgia, on a reporting trip, in September 1991, I arrived in Tbilisi armed with four years of college Russian and gung ho to use it! To my dismay, the independence-minded residents of the Georgian Soviet […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Liana Fix – August 14, 2013) Liana Fix is a researcher on Russia and Eurasia. Her research interests include Russian foreign and security policy after 1991 and regional dynamics in South Caucasus and Central Asia. Five years after the Russian-Georgian war, Georgian Premier Bidzina Ivanishvili has announced that Tbilisi is ready for direct talks with Abkhazia and South […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, August 10, 2013) Five years ago this week, Russian forces invaded Georgia after Tbilisi took actions that Moscow regarded as provocations, thus setting in train the first and so the only use of force between two internationally recognized states on the territory of the former Soviet Union since the very first years […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – August 8, 2013) Georgia has been marking the anniversary of the 2008 war with Russia over its separatist South Ossetia region. A series of events to commemorate the victims of the war and a military parade in the Georgian town of Gori were held on August 8. On the same day, South Ossetia’s de facto foreign […]
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(Interfax – August 7, 2013) Ahead of the fifth anniversary of the so-called “five-day war” between Russia and Georgia back in August 2008, more Russians show a positive attitude towards Georgia, Russian privately-owned Interfax news agency reported on 7 August, quoting the results of a recent poll conducted by an independent pollster, the Levada Centre. The full results of the […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Robert Coalson – August 7, 2013) Azerbaijan is arming to the teeth. Armenia is growing increasingly disillusioned with Russia, its main protector. And the potential for armed conflict in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region appears higher than it has been in years. The increased tensions surrounding the Armenian-controlled separatist enclave inside Azerbaijan — where there have been […]
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(Government.ru – Gorki, August 4, 2013) Dmitry Medvedev is interviewed by Russia Today correspondent Oksana Boyko on the events in August 2008 and consequences of the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict. The interview was recorded on July 24, 2013. Oksana Boyko: Mr Medvedev, thank you for your time… Now that it’s been five years, the international community has all but forgotten this […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, Aug 4, 2013) The Russian government had no intention to occupy Tbilisi and topple the Mikheil Saakashvili regime in its peace enforcement operation against Georgia in August 2008, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said. “As the Supreme Commander in Chief I never gave an order to enter Tbilisi, change their political regime and execute Saakashvili,” Medvedev, the […]
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(RIA Novosti – TBILISI, July 31, 2013) Georgia’s Culture Ministry said Wednesday it did not authorize the reinstallation of the six-meter (20 foot) statue of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that was torn down overnight three years ago in his hometown of Gori. The Gruziya Online website reported Tuesday that the ministry had decided to re-erect the landmark statue outside […]
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(Interfax – TBILISI, July 18, 2013) Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili plans to continue his political career in Georgia after his second presidential term expires. “Georgia is a very small country, where the same recognizable persons will always continue replacing each other. Obviously, no one will disappear, and all of these people will be present in the government and in politics,” […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Lena Smirnova – July 12, 2013) It was meant to be a triumphant comeback that would patch up sour diplomatic relations between former Soviet republics and satisfy Russia’s thirst for quality wine. But following a six-year ban from the country, Georgian wines are facing an uphill battle in the market and experts say they are […]
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(Interfax – TBILISI, June 28, 2013) Fifty-seven percent of Georgians have dubbed Russia as an enemy in a poll the International Republican Institute (IRI) held in Georgia. Thirty percent said Russia was a friend, IRI reported on Thursday. The United States is also on the enemy list, although 41% of Georgians call it a friend. Six percent of the respondents […]
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(RIA Novosti -TBILISI, June 28, 2013) Eighty two percent of Georgians spoke in favor of restoring relations with Russia, while 11 percent said relations should be reinstated partly, a poll conducted by the International Republican Institute (IRI) said on Friday. Russia and Georgia severed diplomatic ties after Moscow recognized de-facto independent Georgian republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent […]
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(Interfax – TBILISI, June 26, 2013) Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili has said that Georgia’s accession to NATO is a choice of the Georgian people and it does not matter whether Russia likes it or not. At a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen Ivanishvili answered the question about how Georgia intends to improve relations with […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Nona Mchedlishvili – June 17, 2013) How do you make a secret disappear? That’s the question Georgian officials and activists are mulling as they consider a stash of legally dubious phone and video recordings made by the Interior Ministry, mainly under the rule of President Mikheil Saakashvili. The current Interior Minister Irakli Garibashvili has pledged to […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – June 17, 2013) A Georgian vintner exported its first shipment of wine to Russia in seven years on June 14, as the lifting of Moscow’s ban on wine imports from its small southern neighbour is finally sealed. The Dugladze winery announced that it had delivered an initial shipment of 30 bottles, which will be […]
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(Interfax – TBILISI, June 12, 2013) Georgia is ready to make steps aimed at normalizing relations with Russia, says special prime ministerial envoy for relations with Russia Zurab Abashidze. “Tbilisi has closely studied Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statement he made yesterday,” and this statement contains “an interesting viewpoint and judgments regarding a dialogue between Georgia and Russia, which is already […]
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(Interfax – TBILISI, June 6, 2013) A first batch of Georgian wine will be sent to Russia next week, Head of the National Wine Agency of the Georgia Agriculture Ministry, Levan Davitashvili, said at a briefing on Thursday. “Two Georgian wine enterprises have already received Russian excise stamps and plan to begin supplying their products to Russia next week,” Davitashvili […]
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From: “Hamilton, Robert E COL USARMY (US)” <robert.e.hamilton.mil@mail.mil> Subject: RE: 2013-#98-Johnson’s Russia List/Adomanis Date: Thu, 30 May 2013 I’m attaching a short piece I wrote recently on the political transition underway in Georgia. It is scheduled to go up on the website of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS) in the near future. I decided to send […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 22, 2013) Georgia has resumed exports of Borzhomi mineral water to Russia after a long-term pause. “On May 22, two trucks with Georgian mineral water Borzhomi were cleared at the Mamontovo customs office of the Moscow region customs of the Central Customs Department. The vehicles came from Georgia and went to suppliers in Moscow stores after […]
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(Interfax – TBILISI, May 16, 2013) The Georgian presidential administration believes the investigation into the 2008 war and the attempts to accuse the previous government of Georgia increase the risk of South Ossetia and Abkhazia being recognized as different countries. “The attitude adopted by the new administration may lead to a catastrophic result for our country, and responsibility for it […]
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(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 […]
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(Interfax – TBILISI, May 12, 2013) Commenting on the nomination of the presidential candidate from the ruling coalition Georgian Dream, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili recalled an old joke about Roman Emperor Caligula who made his horse a senator. Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili earlier said the presidential candidate from Georgian Dream will be Giorgy Margvelashvili, deputy prime minister and education […]
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(RIA Novosti – WASHINGTON, May 1, 2013) US Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that Washington supports Georgia’s aspirations to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), ambitions that Moscow has repeatedly warned will only inflame tensions in the South Caucasus. “We are very supportive of Georgia’s aspirations with respect to NATO and Europe,” Kerry said ahead of […]
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(RIA Novosti – TBILISI, May 2, 2013) Georgia will not boycott next year’s Winter Olympics in the Russian city of Sochi after the country’s National Olympic Committee voted unanimously Thursday in favor of taking part. The question of a boycott has repeatedly arisen in Georgia as a result of the 2008 war with host national Russia. The two countries still […]
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(Interfax – TBILISI, April 29, 2013) Georgia will not establish diplomatic ties with Russia while 20% of its territory is occupied, Georgian Foreign Minister Maya Pandzhanikidze told reporters on Monday. “While 20 percent of the Georgian territories are occupied by Russia, establishing diplomatic ties is impossible. Another reason is that Russia recognizes two Georgian regions as independent states. Until this […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – April 27, 2013) Irakli Alasania served as Georgia’s UN ambassador before resigning in late 2008 and joining the opposition to President Mikheil Saakashvili. He is now defense minister in Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili’s coalition government. RFE/RL correspondent Brian Whitmore caught up with Alasania in Tbilisi to discuss the new government’s approach to Russia. RFE/RL: Since the new […]
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