Georgia’s ruling party official: cooperation with US should begin with clear roadmap

Levan Machavariani, an MP from the ruling Georgian Dream party and Deputy Chair of the parliamentary faction of the ruling party, on Monday said that Georgia was ready to restore relations with the United States “from a clean slate” and had proposed developing a detailed roadmap to guide the process.

In his interview with Imedi TV, Machavariani claimed that the deterioration of US-Georgia relations had been initiated by what he called the “deep state”.

“We are talking about an informal oligarchic rule that has taken root in the US. We know that Mr. Trump has entered into open confrontation with these forces - he calls them the deep state. Accordingly, all of this is tied to the defeat of the deep state”, the ruling party official said.

“The deterioration of our relations under the previous [US] administration was due to the deep state’s major influence on top officials, which the current intelligence chief [Tulsi Gabbard] and others are now openly speaking about. Therefore, the damage to relations was initiated by the deep state. The precondition for fixing this relationship is that the deep state’s influence in the US weakens or is defeated. If that happens, nothing will prevent the reboot of our relations and the start of a genuine partnership”, Machavariani continued.

He added that the Georgian Dream party had never taken steps or made statements that could, even in theory, hinder the reboot of relations with Washington.

Machavariani further stressed that their desire was for Donald Trump and his administration to turn their attention to Georgia “as soon as possible”.

“Of course, we want to accelerate the process, because it is in our interest. At the same time, we must understand that Mr. Trump faces very serious and large-scale issues on the global stage. His most important campaign promise was to end the war in Ukraine quickly. Unfortunately, he has not yet been able to achieve this, but he is making every effort to bring the war to an end”, he concluded.