President After Meeting with Secretary Pompeo: Our Meeting was Insightful & Productive

Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili has assessed the recent meeting with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, noting that the meeting was insightful and productive. 

"Secretary Pompeo, thank you for coming to Georgia. Our meeting was insightful and productive. 30 years of independence have been marked by 30 years of continuous, unquestioned support from the United States, allowing us to withstand challenges and protect our values," she wrote on Twitter. 

“This visit of the Secretary of State is the extremely important one for Georgia. It’s been 30 years since Georgia’s independence and the United States has been supportive of the country’s independence and sovereignty. Today, the region is witnessing changes and at this moment, the reaffirmation, the engagement of the United States in the region and its support to Georgia’s sovereignty and independence is even more important. It’s important that the United States gets more proactive in the region, supportive of the big projects, transport, communication, supportive of the Black Sea security, and this is very important for Georgia, of the peace negotiations concerning the occupied territories, because that’s the situation that needs to see changes, and changes can only come through the peace negotiations. And we value very much the engagement of the United States until now in this process, but we hope that it will be reactivated and will be taken to a higher level.

“We’ve discussed also the economic issues on the background of the COVID crisis and we know that the winter is going to be difficult. America also reassured us that we will remain among recipients of the American aid and hopefully, of the vaccines when they come out.

“We’ve also discussed a free trade agreement and the possible start of negotiations, which I hope will start very soon, we’ve discussed Georgia’s NATO integration, and how to have next concrete steps toward NATO with the support of the United States. All these means that in the region we need a more effective presence of the United States, the US needs to be more active in the region and it needs a strong Georgia, which shapes the very strong relationship between us,” she concluded. 

By Ana Dumbadze