Forty-eight opposition and independent MPs from the Georgian Parliament published a joint statement which condemned the ruling Georgian Dream party’s continued war blackmail conspiracy against Georgia’s Western allies and pledged support for former EU Ambassador Carl Hartzell and U.S. Ambassador Kelly Degnan amid the attacks.
In their statement, the MPs acknowledged the significant role that the U.S. and EU have played in Georgia’s statehood and its Western aspirations since it gained independence. They emphasized that alongside both current and departed members of the GD party, “it is particularly alarming that certain representatives of the judicial corp” are also involved in this political campaign which claims that Georgia’s strategic allies are trying to involve it in the war against Russia.
The MPs pointed to Bidzina Ivanishvili’s recent letter published on July 27, 2022, which confirmed his meeting with Ambassador Degnan but did not specify its content, as evidence of Ivanishvili’s connection with the “anti-state campaign of GD.”
They underscored that such actions from the ruling party “serves the purpose of hindering the integration of Georgia into the EU and NATO at a time when ensuring such integration is the responsibility of the Constitutional bodies of Georgia and the Georgian Dream government according to Article 78* of the Georgian Constitution.”
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The MPs denoted further that such acts are against Georgia’s national interest and are aimed at separating “Georgia from its Western allies and partners and leaving it alone in the face of the occupying state, which is only in the interests of said occupying state – the Russian Federation.”
They highlighted that despite numerous public statements by Ambassadors that the US and EU have never wanted to involve Georgia in the war against Russia and that such statements are not factual, “GD stubbornly continues to circulate such lies.”
They concluded by appealing to the ruling party to “immediately stop the aforementioned slanderous and disinformation campaign against Georgia’s strategic partners – the US and EU.”
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