Parliament adopts Resolution in support of Ukraine

Georgia’s Parliament has approved a Resolution in support of Ukraine with 67 votes in favour and 0 against.

The Parliamentary minority did not attend the voting process as the majority and minority failed to agree on the document text earlier this evening.

Members of the Parliamentary majority and minority presented two different versions of the Resolution text but could not agree on a number of issues when debating the text today.

The text, suggested by the majority and approved this evening, consisted of eight points which included a strong statement claiming Russia had violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

It noted "the aggressive activities by the Russian Federation against Ukraine’ sovereignty and territorial integrity, including deployment of military units in the territory of Ukraine by violation of bilateral agreement, is a serious threat to not only Ukraine but Georgia and the whole of Europe.”

According to the Resolution, Georgia’s Parliament:

• Declared its support to the freedom-loving people of Ukraine, their European choice and the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
• Condemned forceful activities carried out by the Russian Federation against sovereign Ukraine by violating the main principles of international law and bilateral agreements.
• Appealed to the Government of Georgia to continue consulting with representatives of the Government of Ukraine and if necessary, provide humanitarian assistance for troubled Ukrainian people.
• Appealed to the Georgian Government to actively participate in peaceful, monitoring and humanitarian missions under the auspices of UN, OSCE, EU, Council of Europe and other international organizations in Ukraine.
• Called on the Russian Federation to immediately withdraw all military units from Ukrainian territory, which by being deployed there, violated international agreements and stop all activities against Ukraine’s statehood
• Called on the international Commonwealth, predominantly the EU and US to take effective political, economic and diplomatic measures to help the Ukrainian people, protect them from aggression from the Russian Federation and avoid armed conflict and achieve Georgia’s de-occupation
• Supported the spirit of the appeal by Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (the Supreme Council of Ukraine) to Parliaments and international organisations - guarantors of Ukraine’s security, including creation of emergency teams for talks on deescalating the situation
• Called on the EU and NATO to speed up integration of all the states into these organizations, including Georgia, which were ready and whose freedom of choice was under threat.

Disagreements surrounding the Resolution were concerned with the sixth point, where Georgia called on the international community to take measures against Russia.

The minority wanted the word "sanctions” to be mentioned in the text.They recommended to call on the international community to impose sanctions against Russia and to isolate it from the rest of the world.

"We believe no other country can understand as well as Georgia how important it is for an occupied country to have the West impose sanctions against the occupant. There is no other way in the world to make Russia de-occupy the occupied territories,” said minority MP Zurab Zaparidze.

Parliament Chairman Davit Usupashvili expressed concern that today, only 10 percent of the discussion was about Ukraine and the rest of the time was wasted on "other unrelated altercations” between MPs.