Saakashvili Bids Farewell to Zhvania

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said on February 6 in his speech to honor late Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania, that Zhvania?s death ?is a huge test? for the country adding that ?no one should be dieing so unreasonably.?

According to the official information Zurab Zhvania died by carbon monoxide poisoning caused by faulty operation of the gas heating devise in his friend?s apartment on February 3.

Mikheil Saakashvili was speaking in the Holly Trinity Cathedral in Tbilisi, where Zurab Zhvania?s body was moved late on Saturday.

?I could never imagine that I would stand here? I want to tell my friends [referring to the dozens of official delegation from foreign states, which arrived in Tbilisi to bid farewell to Zurab Zhvania]: do not be afraid,? Saakashvili said.

?And I want to tell our enemies: do not have any hopes that we will fail. Zurab Zhvania died but we are alive. Do not have hopes that we will fail to accomplish the process that we have started? We will become a strong nation,? Mikheil Saakashvili added.

He also called on the nation to stand together. ?If we want to learn to win we should learn to be united in times of tragedy,? the President stated.

Parliamentary Chairperson Nino Burjanadze also delivered speech and said that ?it is very hard to talk about Zurab Zhvania in the past term.?

?We will show the world that we can stand together in the times of tragedy. We should show that we can accomplish what we have started,? she said.

Nino Burjanadze also said that Zurab Zhvania ?demonstrated brilliantly Georgian nation?s democratic aspirations,? when he said in 1999 at the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe when Georgia became the Council of Europe member state: ?I am Georgian and therefore I am European.?

A letter of condolence sent by the U.S. President George W. Bush was also read at the farewell ceremony, in which the U.S. President says that he was shocked by the death of Zurab Zhvania.