Burjanadze Denies International Pressure on Saakashvili Ahead of UN Speech

Parliamentary Chairperson Nino Burjanadze denied that there was international pressure on President Saakashvili to moderate his UN speech on September 22.

EU special representative to the South Caucasus said on October 5 that massive international pressure, led by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, was needed to moderate Saakashvili?s UN speech. According to Peter Semneby, as a result the Georgian President refrained from setting a timeframe for the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from Abkhazia and South Ossetia during his address to the UN General Assembly Session in New York on September 22.

?This statement by Mr. Semneby sounded little bit strange because I know for sure that Mr. Solana had no conversation with President Saakashvili ahead of the latter?s UN speech. I do not know why he needed [to make this statement], or how well Mr. Semneby was informed about it, but what I can say for sure is that there was no conversation between Solana and Saakashvili before the Saakashvili?s UN speech. We knew exactly what to say at the UN and how to say it. Of course we could have made this speech even more critical, but we wanted it to be constructive and not based on emotions,? Burjanadze said in an interview with the RFE/RL Georgian Service.

This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)