Ruling party calls opposition draft resolution on Russia ‘destructive’
Ruling Georgian Dream party MP Giorgi Volksi said that the Georgian parliament will not approve the resolution of the European Georgia opposition party. Photo: Georgian Dream press office.
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The ruling Georgian Dream party says that the draft resolution of the European Georgia opposition party, which urges for additional international sanctions against Russia, is destructive and will lead to imposing economic sanctions on Georgia.
The initiative by the destructive opposition, which has brought serious damage to the country when they were in power [many of the European Georgia opposition members are former members of the United National Movement] will affect Georgian citizens only. The party wants the Georgian people and not Russia to pay for occupation,” Giorgi Volski from the Georgian Dream party stated after the party meeting earlier today.
Volski said that the country’s Euro-Atlantic course is ‘irreversible,’ and the ruling party ‘is not in need of dictation’ on how to run the country.
It was under the Georgian Dream leadership the country has shown genuine progress on the Euro-Atlantic path. We have done this instead of populist steps and statements [unlike our predecessors]. The Georgian parliament will not support the initiative which will lead to the punishment of the Georgian people,” Volski stated.
One of the initiators of the draft resolution is former deputy FM Sergi Kapanadze.
The draft resolution written by Sergi Kapanadze and Giorgi Kandelaki from the European Georgia opposition, reads that Russia continues the occupation of Georgian territory and urges the Georgian government to carry out “necessary diplomatic and political work” against the illegality.
In particular, the party urges the government to take the following steps:
- Impose US and EU sanctions to include the demand for the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Georgian territory, as per the 2008 ceasefire agreement,
- Have the US and EU sanctions include the Otkhozoria and Tatunashvili list.
- Ask the EU and the US to impose sanctions on all foreign companies which are involved in renting properties [or other illegal activities] of the victims of ethnic cleansing in the Georgian occupied regions.
The Georgian Dream ruling party says that the approval of the resolution by the Georgian parliament may cause economic sanctions against Georgia, which will affect the Georgian people.
After the June 20 incident in the Georgian parliament, when Russian MPs were forced to leave the legislative body and then the country, Russia banned direct flights to Georgia.
The Russian Duma also appealed to the government to impose economic sanctions, which Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘declined.’
‘I wouldn’t do that out of respect for the Georgian people’
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he did not support a parliamentary call to impose tough economic sanctions on Georgia. Earlier today, the Russian parliament unanimously backed a resolution urging the government to draw up sanctions against Georgia, which included halting the import of wine and mineral waters from Georgia to the Russian Federation and putting in place a ban on remittances from Russia.
Flights between Georgia and Russia have been banned starting today following the recent decision of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The ban on flights was announced after protesters in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi tried to storm the Georgian parliament on June 20 when a Russian MP addressed a forum of politicians at the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy from the speaker’s chair.
The European Georgia and the United National Movement opposition parties have refused to attend the presentation at 2 p.m., when the Georgian Dream ruling party will propose the changes in the constitution for Georgia to have fully proportional voting in the 2020 parliamentary elections, the electoral system have demanded by the opposition for years.
Georgian opposition MPs have interrupted the 26th Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (IAO) after a Russian MP and president of the assembly, Sergey Gavrilov addressed the audience from the Georgian parliamentary speaker’s chair earlier today.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says that he would resume direct flights with Georgia, which were suspended in July 2019, as a majority of Georgians ‘have seen the negative sides’ of the ‘provocation staged’ in the Georgian parliament on June 20.He said that the Georgian opposition deliberately sparked unrest in the Georgian parliament after the address of Russian MP Sergey Gavrilov from the seat of the Georgian parliament speaker that day.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says that the June 2019 ‘provocations’ [referring to protests in Tbilisi] have negatively influenced the process of normalising relations between the two countries which was launched in 2012 under the Georgian Dream leadership.