Russia’s Kalashnikov Says State Duma Members to Visit Georgia
One of the leaders of the Russian Communist Party and the head of the Russian State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs and Eurasian Integration, Leonid Kalashnikov, says that members of Russia’s State Duma plan to visit Tbilisi at the invitation of the opposition Alliance of Patriots of Georgia (APG).
The information was released by the Russian news Agency, Izvestia, which says that during the recent visit to Moscow, the APG members invited their Russian colleagues to Georgia.
"We will definitely go to Tbilisi. Russian parliamentarians have not been in Georgia for at least ten years. Such contacts are needed to solve a number of issues. At the meetings, we will discuss diplomatic relations and economics and will also try to solve the visa issue. It is good that this initiative is bilateral," Kalashvnikov told the newspaper.
The article says that through the efforts of the MPs of both countries, the parliamentary channel of cooperation has been restored.
The exact date and other details of the Russian parliamentarians’ visit to Tbilisi are as yet unknown.
Irakli Sesiashvili, Chairman of the Parliamentary Defense and Security Committee of Georgia commented on Kalashnikov’s statement.
“Georgia does not support the establishment of any official ties with Moscow, except internationally recognized formats of negotiation,” Sesiashvili said, stressing that the government and the majority hold a negative view towards the steps taken by the APG.
“Our government is not going to establish any official relationship with Russia while its embassies remain in occupied Abkhazia and South Ossetia and until we see that Russia is ready to de-occupy Georgian territories,” he added.
The pro-Russian APG party, which gained six mandates in Georgia’s 150-seat parliament during the October 2016 elections, claimed from the very beginning that dialogue with Russia was necessary to solve Georgia’s territorial problems.
On July 12, APG MPs, Giorgi Lomia, Ada Marshania and Nato Chkheidze arrived in Moscow and met Leonid Kalashnikov, Kazbek Taisayev from the Communist Party and Artyom Kavinov from Putin’s Yedinaya Rossiya, which is the ruling party in Russia.
Despite their previous claims, the Georgian opposition MPs did not raise the occupation issue at the meeting with the Russian parliamentarians, and the main topics were restoration of diplomatic ties and the initiative of abolition of Georgia’s Law on Occupation, according to which entry to the occupied territories by foreign citizens and stateless persons from any other direction shall be prohibited and be punishable under the Criminal Code of Georgia.
Georgian media reports that the sides agreed to establish an informal working group which will gather every month to discuss the normalization process between Russia and Georgia.
Georgian and Russian lawmakers request this group be officially recognized by Russia’s Duma and the Parliament of Georgia.
This attempt from the APG to restore diplomatic ties with Russia, which were cut after the 2008 Georgia-Russia August war, was harshly criticized by Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream (GD) and parliamentary opposition parties, The United National Movement and European Georgia.
Thea Morrison