Former ruling party MPs to US Department of State: Ivanishvili’s issue a measure of Western values in Georgia

Three former MPs of the ruling Georgian Dream party, Sozar Subari, Dimitri Khindadaze and Mikheil Kavelashvili, who left the GD last month “to tell the public the truth,” on Friday addressed the US Department of State Spokesperson Ned Price over the latter’s reaction to the “attacks on the US Ambassador Kelly Degnan” by some “officials,” stressing the role of the ruling  party founder, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili.

 

“The issue of Bidzina Ivanishvili has become a measure of Western values in Georgia,” said the MPs, noting that the Georgian people would not tolerate attacks on Ivanishvili.

 

The MPs claimed that Price meant them when he pointed at “officials,” reiterating that the US Ambassador “had made no statement against Georgia’s engagement to Russia’s war in Ukraine.”

 

“Today we constantly hear that over the past 30 years the European Union and the United States of America have assisted Georgia, and we should be grateful to them for that. Yes, we are grateful and have repeatedly thanked our international partners, but why should we not thank a person who has also made important philanthropies for his own country?” said the MPs, referring to Ivanishvili.

 

Khundadze also noted that “we do not want foreign countries to rudely interfere in the internal affairs of our country, to review court decisions in embassies, to artificially encourage the change of the elected government, and by introducing sanctions to insult the greatest benefactor of the Georgian people.”

 

They also suggested that “many years of long expectations, to a certain extent, caused disappointment among the Georgian people towards Western policies”, and that the decision of the European Union, not to grant the country candidate status in June, “annoyed the Georgian people”.