Georgian PM reaffirms readiness to work towards renewed strategic partnership with US

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on Friday said that discussions on restoring the strategic partnership with the United States were the focus of his meeting with US Chargé d’Affaires Courtney Austrian.

Speaking to journalists, Kobakhidze noted that the restoration of the strategic partnership would pave the way for further developments across all areas of bilateral relations, including sanctions-related issues.

“We did not discuss sanctions during the meeting with the US Chargé d’Affaires. Instead, we focused on restoring the strategic partnership. If the strategic partnership is restored, this will lead to progress across all areas, whether concerning sanctions or any other matter”, the Prime Minister said.

“We have already taken steps of our own, made numerous public statements and undertaken concrete actions aimed at restoring the strategic partnership. The general response was that engagement between the two countries should continue. We did not discuss any specific issues in this regard. It was more of an introductory meeting, and the discussion was quite general in nature. In short, we expressed our desire to restore the strategic partnership and reaffirmed our readiness to work towards that goal”, he concluded.