Biden Heads to Georgia, Ukraine to Reaffirm Support

U.S. Vice President, Joe Biden, will arrive in Georgia early evening on Wednesday after visiting Ukraine to reiterated that Washington’s efforts “to reset relations with Russia will not come at the expense of any other country,” Tony Blinken, the Vice President’s national security adviser, said.

After the arrival in Tbilisi the Vice President will be hosted by President Saakashvili at an official dinner. On Thursday, after meeting with the U.S. embassy staff, the Vice President will hold an official meeting with President Saakashvili and then with civil society representatives.

From the non-parliamentary opposition leaders, Vice President Biden plans a meeting with Irakli Alasania, leader of Alliance for Georgia; Nino Burjanadze, a former parliamentary speaker and leader of Democratic Movement-United Georgia and Levan Gachechiladze, an individual opposition politician.

Meeting with Parliamentary Chairman, Davit Bakradze, and with leaders of the parliamentary minority group is also planned. After those meetings the Vice President will deliver a speech in the Parliament.

Before leaving for Washington, the Vice President will meet with schoolchildren who are participating in USAID-funded program. 

Speaking with journalists in a conference call on July 17 Tony Blinken, the Vice President’s national security adviser, said that the United States’ partnership with Georgia and Ukraine were not going to anyone’s expense, “but they can be to everyone’s advantage.”

He said that Washington wanted to see Russia fulfilling all of its commitments undertaken under the August 12 ceasefire agreement.

“At the same time, we’ve been very clear with our friends in Georgia that their rightful aspirations to preserve and regain the territorial integrity of their country cannot be accomplished by force; that the best approach for Georgia going forward is to build the strongest possible democracy, the strongest possible economy, and to become what we believe Georgia can become, which is a very powerful role model and a very attractive country for all of its citizens,” he said.

He said that Georgian opposition, government and civil society needed to work on constitutional and electoral reform in order to prepare Georgia for 2013 presidential elections.

“There’s been an incredibly vigorous political debate and people have behaved in a largely peaceful and orderly fashion in the midst of that debate, both the protestors and the government [reference to the recent street protest rallies]. So that’s been encouraging,” Blinken said.

“And now I think to move forward, the government, the opposition, civil society need to cooperate on constitutional reform, on electoral reform, and to prepare Georgia for the first end-of-term electoral transfer of power in its history when the President is eventually up for reelection.”

He said that it was in the U.S. interest to help Ukraine and Georgia to become “the most effective partners possible, with transparent democratic and economic institutions, with a vibrant civil societies and modern militaries.” Blinken said that the Vice President would discuss with the two countries leadership “the concrete steps we propose to take in the months ahead.”

He said that like in the case of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, Georgia’s 2003 Rose  Revolution "remains a work in progress."

"In different ways each country faces the challenge of fulfilling the promise of those revolutions," Blinken said.

He said that the Vice President was going to talk to leaders and people of Georgia and Ukraine about those challenges and in case of Georgia about “the need to deepen its democratic institutions.”

He also said that the Vice President’s visit would further reiterate the U.S. support to Georgia’s territorial integrity.

"The United States is not — will not — recognize them [Abkhazia and South Ossetia] as independent states," Blinken said.

This post is also available in: Русский (Russian)