Opposition Party Leaders Meet Ex-Defense Minister in Germany

Leaders of the opposition Conservative Party, Kakha Kukava and Zviad Dzidziguri, met with Irakli Okruashvili, a former defense minister, and his close associate, businessman Kibar Khalvashi in Berlin to discuss planned April protest rallies.

“A common vision has been developed on the issues related with organizing the April 9 protest rally, as well as on post-Saakashvili political arrangement,” a brief press release issued by the Conservative Party on March 19 reads.

Okruashvili, who is wanted in Georgia and has a political asylum in France, is a founder of Movement for United Georgia party, which along with the Conservative Party and number of others, plan to launch what they call permanent protest rallies from April 9 to demand President Saakashvili’s resignation. Kibar Khalvashi, who owned shares into Rustavi 2 TV at the time when Okruashvili was Saakashvili’s close ally, is now in self-imposed exile after his businesses were targeted by the authorities, as he says, for political reasons.

The meeting was also attended by a former chief of Georgia’s forestry department, Bidzina Giorgobiani, who fled to Germany in 2005 after accusing the law enforcement agencies of illegally taking actions against him.

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