Ruling party head defends Gov’t peaceful reintegration policy after comments by Saakashvili’s uncle

Irakli Kobakhidze, the Chair of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Monday responded to comments by Temur Alasania, the uncle of the imprisoned former President Mikheil Saakashvili who criticised the idea of peaceful reintegration of the country’s Russian-occupied regions, by noting the outcomes of policies on the matter by the former United National Movement Government.

Kobakhidze was responding to a claim by Alasania who ruled out the possibility of reintegration of the occupied territories through exclusively peaceful means.

The party official claimed Alasania and Saakashvili wanted to “repeat” the developments during the latter’s time in power during the 2008 war with Russia, and further pointed out the current Government was pursuing a “different” policy with regard to the topic.

We do not want to share the experience of Alasania and his niece - naturally, this is incredible. We have a different policy and these people are irritated by it. [T]hey are worried about their own sins and they want to repeat in Georgia the disaster that we saw in our country in 2008”, Kobakhidze said. 

Kakha Kaladze, the Secretary General of the ruling Georgian Dream party and Tbilisi Mayor, also commented on the matter by saying the 2008 war had claimed the lives of “many civilians” and the country lost a large part of its territory to the occupation.

He stressed the country needed to restore its territorial integrity by “economic strengthening” and “maintenance of peace”.