Georgia will not tolerate unfounded accusations of ties with Russia, says Georgian Parliament official

Georgia will not tolerate baseless accusations regarding its relations with Russia, including from its partners and friends, said on Thursday Nikoloz Samkharadze, the chair of the foreign relations committee of the Georgian Parliament, during his speech at the winter meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.

Responding to the baseless accusations, Samkharadze noted that over the past 35 years Georgia has endured three different wars with Russia.

“In the recent past, we have won several cases against Russia at the International Criminal Court and the European Court of Human Rights. Recently, we also filed a lawsuit against Russia at the International Criminal Court on behalf of Ukraine for war crimes committed by Russia. I think it is common sense that if a country is in close relations with another country, it does not sue it in international courts. Accordingly, we will not tolerate baseless accusations about our relations with Russia, including from our partners and friends”, Samkharadze said.

“You mentioned that Georgia is close to Russia. I would like to remind you that Georgia is the only state in this hall that has not had diplomatic relations with Russia for the past 18 years, and we have not had bilateral political meetings since 2008. We meet the Russians only in Geneva, in the presence of the OSCE, the EU and the US, to discuss our territorial integrity. This is the only place where we meet them”, he concluded.