State Minister in Brussels for Urgent Talks

Giorgi Baramidze, the Georgian vice-premier and state minister for Euro-Atlantic integration, left for Brussels to hold urgent talks with NATO officials on April 18. He is also expected to travel to London and Paris, according to his press office.

The visits are part of diplomatic efforts to, as President Saakashvili said on April 17, “mobilize international support” in response to a Russian move to establish legal links with breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Baramidze is scheduled to hold talks with NATO deputy secretary general Claudio Bisogniero, NATO special representative for the South Caucasus Robert Simmons and the ambassadors of thirteen NATO member-states.
 
“Our goal is clear: to prevent the annexation of our territories by Russia and to prevent conflict in our region; we want peace,” Baramidze told journalists before his departure for Brussels.