Opposition Politician Walks Out of Meeting with NATO Officials

Salome Zourabichvili, ex-foreign minister and leader of opposition Georgia’s Way Party, walked out of a meeting with NATO special representative for the South Caucasus Robert Simmons on September 16.

She told journalists afterwards that she had done it in protest against NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer’s absence at the meeting with the opposition. Scheffer, as indicated in the pre-planned visit schedule, was delivering a speech at Tbilisi State University just as the NATO special envoy and other officials from the alliance were meeting with opposition politicians.

“I walked out of the meeting because the secretary-general did not attend it,” Zourabichvili told journalists. “He considered that his speech at the university was more important than meeting the opposition.”

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