Ruling party head rejects NGO claims on authorities leaving US sanctions on Georgian citizens “without response”

Irakli Kobakhidze, the Chair of the ruling Georgian Dream party on Monday rejected claims by non-governmental organisations that alleged the Georgian authorities had left the sanctions imposed by the United States Department of State on Georgian judges and on the former Prosecutor General “without response”.

Kobakhidze’s comments followed a statement released earlier on Monday by Transparency International Georgia, which claimed the sanctions - imposed on the judges for their alleged involvement in “significant corruption”, and on the former official for his alleged links with the Russian intelligence - had not been “followed by effective steps” from Georgian authorities.

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In his response, Kobakhidze said the Georgian authorities had “attempted to obtain evidence from the partners to support the relevant charges, but to no avail”. 

Moreover, we heard a completely unconvincing explanation that the imposition of visa restrictions for judges was based on information received from open sources - namely, televisions, newspapers and other mass media”, Kobakhidze said.

He noted the head of the State Security Service of Georgia had explained the Service requested “relevant evidence” for the sanctions from its partners, but received the information “neither in official or private meetings, nor through open and closed channels”. 

“Moreover, the partners themselves asked the Georgian agencies to obtain and send evidence on the case of [Otar] Partskhaladze”, in reference to the sanctioned former Prosecutor General.

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The GD Chair claimed the imposition of visa restrictions on the judges, and the inclusion of Partskhaladze in the list of sanctioned persons, were “not based on any facts or evidence” and added there had been “frequent cases when our strategic partner [the US] faced awkward situation due to the irresponsible actions of rich NGOs in the past”.  

“Even just consider the scandal associated with the results of parallel voting in the [2020] elections, for which one of the rich NGOs created the greatest inconvenience”, he said in reference to the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) NGO that admitted to a mistake in its data of the parallel vote count in early December 2020 that had been used by the domestic opposition parties for several weeks 'as evidence that the elections were fabricated'.

Kobakhidze also highlighted the arrival of Robin Dunnigan, the newly appointed Ambassador of the US, to the country earlier this month, noting “senior representatives” of the Georgian Government had “already held very productive meetings” with the diplomat.

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He added the sides had a “strong basis for optimism” that the “strategic partnership” would “deepen significantly” during Dunnigan's tenure. 

Kobakhidze added the statement of the “wealthy NGOs” was a “step against the positive efforts of the Ambassador”, alleging the “obvious purpose” of “maintaining unwanted misunderstandings in Georgian and American relations” behind it.

The imposition of visa restrictions on judges without evidence has created serious discomfort in relations. The respective efforts of the NGOs were dictated by the interest in gaining control over the [domestic] judiciary, among other objectives”, the official claimed.

“However, we tried our best not to bring this issue to the fore in public discussion, so as not to deepen the embarrassment. With this background, when rich NGOs themselves are trying to actualise their own improbity, we think this fact deserves special concern”, he added.

Exactly the same forces that have been providing distorted information to our partners for a long time - actively agitating against the granting of [the European Union] candidate status to Georgia - are today trying to keep the old artificial inconveniences on the agenda and thereby create new inconveniences, forcing us to not leave their actions without responding”, Kobakhidze pointed out. 

He also added the statement by the organisations was coming against the backdrop of the country waiting for the decision of the European Commission on the status of an EU membership candidate. 

Attacking the authorities a week before the announcement of the decision of the European Commission is nothing more than another rough action directed against the granting of candidate status to Georgia”, the GD Chair claimed.

He also stressed it could be “seen from everything” that the organisations “do not serve the interests of Georgia, America or Europe”. 

“In fact, they serve the ‘global war party’, whose main goal is the Ukrainisation of Georgia. The mentioned force and the NGOs in its service do not want to deepen the Georgian-American relations and are trying in every way to maintain the old, negative trend in these relations, which we cannot allow”, he alleged.

These NGOs protested against the law on ‘Transparency of foreign financing’, and did not want to make their foreign financing transparent to the public, fearing that their anti-state plans and sources of financing would be revealed”, Kobakhidze said in reference to protests over the ultimately dropped bill.

The official claimed the NGOs were “trying not to allow the new US Ambassador to reset relations”, and, “on the contrary, to damage these relations in some way”. 

Kobakhidze said he hoped Dunnigan would not “actively react” to “all the actions directed against the deepening of relations between the two countries”, and added he was confident the relations would “deepen significantly” under the newly appointed Ambassador.