August war with Russia “temporarily lost” – parliament committee chair

The August war with Russia was temporarily lost. The government’s goal is to reintegrate the territories only with peaceful manners, Maka Botchorishvili, the chair of the parliament’s European Integration Committee, said on Friday in comments on the wording of Tornike Rizhvadze, the chair of the government in the country’s Adjara region, who has called the war “cowardly lost”. 

 

In her press comments, the parliamentary official told journalists any speculations on the topic could harm national interests, following the opposition’s allegations to Rizhvadze, who represents the ruling Georgian Dream party, for “insulting the heroes” fallen during the five-day war with Russia in 2008. 

 

Gia Volski, the Vice Speaker in the Georgian parliament, called the opposition slamming Rizhvadze “empty-headed”, claiming the latter meant the former president Mikheil Saakashvili  and former officials who he said had abandoned servicemembers on the battlefield and not the country’s troops. 

 

The presentation of Rizhvadze’s annual report on Thursday was held amid opposition’s protest and noise, who accused him and the country’s current authorities of pursuing “pro-Kremlin policies” by accepting the resumption of direct flights with Russia in May and Moscow’s move to lift visa regulations for Georgian nationals amid its ongoing conflict with Russia. 

 

Responding to the allegations, Rizhvadze told the opposition it was Saakashvili who lifted visa regulations for Russian citizens in 2012 and was “greeting Russians with flowers on the border” following the “cowardly lost war”.