Presidents signs Bakradze as Georgia’s UN envoy following her criticism that diplomat “did nothing” as US Ambassador

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili on Wednesday signed the decree on the appointment of the country’s former Ambassador to the US,  David Bakradze, as Georgia’s new Permanent Representative to the United Nations, in the wake of her critical comments on Bakradze in June that the latter “did nothing” while in Washington.

In her remarks in mid-July, Zourabichvili said that that she was against the appointment of Bakradze as the country’s new envoy to the United Nations, as the government wished that, as the latter “has done nothing for the US-Georgia relations over the course of the past five years.”  

 

She suggested that Bakradze, who served as Georgia’s State Minister for Euro-Atlantic Integration under the Georgian Dream authorities before taking the Ambassador’s post in 2016, ”had no contacts, had ensured no high-level meetings or published even a single article while in office.”  

 

Zourabichvili stated that she received the decree from the government to sign the new position for Bakradze on July 15 and did not approve it, while she had signed all other, 36 decrees over the appointment of ambassadors, dismissing the Government’s allegations over the issue.  

 

The Government filed a lawsuit against the President to the Constitutional Court earlier this year, claiming that Zourabichvili had refused to approve the appointment of several ambassadors.