Culture Minister Clarifies Remarks on OSCE PA President
Few hours after dismissing OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Riccardo Migliori’s "Leninism" remarks as "utter foolishness", Georgian Culture Minister, Nikoloz Rurua, released a written statement saying that at the time of making this comment he was not aware of an original quote of Migliori and relied fully on citation provided by a journalist who asked him to comment about OSCE PA President’s remarks.
"After reading Mr. Riccardo Migliori’s quote in full, I found out that in his statement [Migliori] did not in any way suggest that Georgia was a Leninist country as I was incorrectly informed before making my comments," Rurua said.
"After familiarizing myself with [Migliori’s] remarks, I can state that among other issues he also discusses certain peculiarities of Georgia’s political culture, characteristic to young democracies and makes his own conclusions and I have nothing against of that," Rurua said.
He also said that some media sources "misinterpreted" him as if calling for OSCE PA President’s resignation. Rurua was referring to part of his initial remarks when he said that if Migliori really thought of Georgia being Leninist country, "then he’d better to no longer be…” – Rurua was interrupted by a journalist at that point and later this remarks were interpreted as his call for OSCE PA President’s resignation.
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