Saakashvili on his Controversial Trip to Turkey

President Saakashvili said on May 4, that he traveled to Turkey recently, but added it was a business trip, denying reports that the Georgian President was intending to spent a four-day holiday in the seaside resort of Bodrum.

Although not mentioning an exact location where he was in Turkey, his remarks were an obvious response to the Turkish media reports about his trip to Bodrum, which were picked up by the Georgian media sources, but ignored by the national television stations.

According to the Turkish media reports Saakashvili arrived in the seaside resort on April 25. The Turkish media reports were picked up later on the same day by a pro-opposition Maestro TV; another small Tbilisi-based Kavkasia TV was also covering those reports. On April 26 Saakashvili arrived back to Tbilisi and he made a televised appearance in the same evening. 

The Georgian officials initially were strongly denying that Saakashvili was in the Turkish resort. Davit Bakradze, the parliamentary chairman, tried to shun away from direct answer when asked about the matter and said last week that he only knew that the President was in Sofia participating in the energy summit on April 24-25 and in Tbilisi already on April 26.

“Many have wondered why I made a stop-over in Turkey recently,” Saakashvili said and added that he and Levan Varshalomidze, head of the Adjara Autonomous Republic’s government, traveled to Turkey to see “a modern greenhouse farm there, to see new technologies, which we plan to bring here in near future.” He added that he traveled to Turkey to also meet with potential investors.

Saakashvili made remarks during a live televised meeting with workers of a textile factory in the Adjara Autonomous Republic, which is owned by a Turkish distributor of sportswear manufacturer, Puma.

In his speech, which lasted for up to 20 minutes, the President focused on economy and said that for overcoming of the economic difficulties, the country needed “unity” and “stability.”

“We need to maintain non-corrupt environment and to prevent the return of corrupt officials no matter what slogans they may use to confront us and no matter what the political rhetoric they may resort to,” Saakashvili said.

“In order to be a united country, Georgia needs to have strong economy and to be attractive for the entire region. For this purpose we need to win many struggles. Our key enemy today is unemployment and poverty,” he added.

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