Entry ban for travelers for their nationality “wrong” - ruling party MP
Ruling Georgian Dream party MP Anri Okhanashvili on Friday criticised the opposition’s calls to impose visa requirements for Russian and Belarusian citizens. Photo: Parliament of Georgia press office
Tweet 
Share
Anri Okhanashvili, a ruling Georgian Dream party MP and the Head of Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee, said on Friday denying travellers entry to Georgia for their nationality was “wrong”, in comments on recent calls by the domestic opposition to impose visa requirements for Russian and Belarusian citizens on the backdrop of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Pointing at the legal aspect, Okhanashvili suggested that the ban could be applied to those arrivals only who had violated the Georgian Law on the Occupied Territories through visiting the country’s Russian-controlled Abkhazia and Tskhivali (South Ossetia) regions without any official permit from Tbilisi.
Any individual who violates the Law on the Occupied Territories, no matter he (she) is Russian, Belarusian, American, German, or whoever, will be subject to legal action”, Okhanashvili said,noting that the Georgian state bodies were working “round the clock” to ensure peace and security.
In remarks to the opposition’s calls, the ruling party chair Irakli Kobakhidze said on Friday that the “xenophobic campaign” aimed at inciting aggression against Russian citizens, which “should lead to escalation and incidents”.
Speaking about “security threats” and “uncontrolled influx” of Russian and Belarussian citizens, the Lelo for Georgia opposition party earlier this week called for the introduction of visa requirements for Russian and Belarus citizens.
The Georgian Government remains committed to the policy of peaceful de-occupation and will resist “all provocations” aimed at escalating a new military confrontation with “our Abkhaz and Ossetian brothers and sisters,” Irakli Kobakhidze, the head of the ruling Georgian Dream party, said on Monday.
Irakli Kobakhidze, the Chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Friday called on the public to disassociate themselves from a “discriminatory campaign” against Russian citizens in Georgia, claiming the “sole purpose” of speculation on number of Russian nationals entering the country and calls for imposing visa requirement for them was “to turn Georgia into a second front” amid the war in Ukraine, and adding xenophobia and chauvinism “has never been and will never be” a part of Georgian culture.
Irakli Kobakhidze, the Chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Thursday rejected the calls of the Lelo for Georgia opposition party for imposing visa requirements for Russian and Belarusian citizens to prevent security threats in Georgia on the backdrop of Russia’s war in Ukraine by calling it a “deliberate, xenophobic campaign that is absolutely disgraceful”.
Calls by the Lelo for Georgia opposition party to impose visa requirements for Russian and Belarusian citizens serve the goal of dragging Georgia into Russia’s war in Ukraine, ruling Georgian Dream party MP Anri Okhanashvili said on Thursday in remarks that also reminded the opposition that the visa requirement with Russia had been lifted by the former President Mikheil Saakashvili while in office.
Iago Khvichia, an MP from the Girchi opposition party, on Friday backed comments by Irakli Kobakhidze, the Chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party, that highlighted calls for imposing visa requirements on Russian citizens were coming from opposition members who had ruled to lift visa rules on Russian nationals while in power as part of the United National Movement Government in 2011.
Levan Davitashvili, the Georgian Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development, on Monday slammed the country’s ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili and former members of the United National Movement Government for their calls to authorities to impose visa requirements for Russian citizens, accusing the opposition of aiming to hinder domestic tourism development.
Kakha Kaladze, the Mayor of Tbilisi and the Secretary General of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Thursday said the country would “not start a war against Russia” and “does not get involved in the Russia-Ukraine war”, stressing the “influx” of visitors to Georgia in the wake of the conflict's outbreak was welcomed.