Ruling party head: US Embassy’s response to Security Service statement “concerning”

Iraikli Kobakhidze, the head of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Tuesday said the response of the United States Embassy in Georgia to the statement of the country’s State Security Service’s that alleged an US state programme’s funding of trainings of certain civil groups in Georgia with the alleged goal of organising an “unrest” in the country this fall was “concerning”, as “the public expects to hear from the Embassy that revolutionary processes will not be supported”.

The Service on Monday said “top managerial representatives” from the Belgrade-based Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies had been invited to Georgia by the East-West Management Institute of the United States Agency for International Development programme last month to “train domestic civil groups and individuals for a planned unrest” in Tbilisi this fall.

In its response to the allegations on Monday, the Embassy rejected the USAID’s engagement in the developments as “false” and stressed the claims had “fundamentally mischaracterised” the goals of the country’s assistance to Georgia.

Yesterday I read the statement of the [US] Embassy on this matter. I was shocked, I can tell you directly that we heard an absolutely concerning statement. Instead of seeing a distancing from the processes that are directly related to the preparation for a revolution [in the country], we saw a completely different statement, which is concerning”, Kobakhidze said.

“The Georgian public wants peace in this country, not a revolution - the kind of trouble that, for example, a revolution brought to our friendly country, Ukraine. The public does not want this, and the public expects to hear a different position from the Embassy in this case - the position that they will not under any circumstances support revolutionary processes, although yesterday's statement was absolutely shocking and insulting to the Georgian public”, the ruling party head noted.

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili on Monday said his Government would not allow “any disturbance or destabilisation” in the country by “destructive and radical” forces, in his reaction to the Service’s statement.