Okruashvili: Agreement on Bases Withdrawal Needs Parliament’s Ratification

Georgian Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili said while speaking at the Statesmen’s Forum at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies on June 16 that the binding agreement, which will formalize a joint declaration by the Russian and Georgian Foreign Ministers regarding the withdrawal of Russian military bases, needs to be “ratified by the Parliaments of both countries.”

“My feeling is that this process will complicate the situation. The debates will start etc. But if the Russian constitution establishes such requirements they should move to these procedures,” Irakli Okruashvili said.

He also said that unlike Russia, the Georgian side is not obliged to ratify this agreement because the document does not concern “the deployment of Georgian troops outside of Georgia.”

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Russian and Georgian sides finalized a text of this agreement during talks in Moscow on June 16-17.

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