President Saakashvili said on April 19 that Tbilisi was ready for dialogue with everyone to settle Georgia’s frozen conflicts peacefully. He said, however, that the country would never accept the non-return of IDPs or the status quo in the conflict zones.
?I am glad to see that the international community has started to see that new approaches are necessary instead of maintaining the status quo, because its preservation is impossible and Georgia will never accept it,? President Saakashvili said while addressing the NATO Parliamentary Assembly’s 65th Rose-Roth seminar in Tbilisi.
In his opening remarks President Saakashvili spoke about ?one of the most successful and forgotten ethnic cleansing? in Abkhazia, when ?500,000 people were expelled from the territory of Abkhazia.?
?If someone in the international community wants to see a Georgian government policy that will hamper the IDPs? return, they will be disappointed. Such suppositions are very insulting not only for the Georgian leadership, but for every Georgian. I want everyone to understand this,? Saakashvili said.
He also spoke about Tbilisi?s plans for the resolution of the South Ossetian conflict, saying that the decision to create a provisional administrative entity in South Ossetia meant ?the launch of an important stage.?
?The local ethnic Ossetian leader [South Ossetian alternative leader Dimitri Sanakoev], who struggled against the Georgian state in the early nineties, made a reasonable choice in favor of peace,? President Saakashvili noted.
?We offer our hand to everyone in order to peacefully settle the conflict. Everybody knows well that we are consolidated and have political will. We are very flexible in making various decisions? The view that the situation in Georgia is explosive should be dismissed ? we have many times proved that we can show restraint, where most countries would have failed to do so. We can be extremely flexible, we can be a government of the entire country, and not simply represent the interests of one ethnic group,? Saakashvili added.
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