The Daily Beat: 18 March
In the framework of his three-day visit to the South Caucasus states, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg arrived in Tbilisi from Azerbaijan, where he met with Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze and President Salome Zurabishvili. Speaking at the press conference in Tbilisi, the secretary-general reiterated NATO’s full support for Georgia’s territorial integrity, condemned the holding of Russia’s presidential elections in occupied territories, and described Georgia as one of NATO’s “closest partners.” Stoltenberg also underscored the importance of democratic reforms and free and fair elections.
In an interview with RFE/RL in Tbilisi, Stoltenberg reiterated that NATO has an open-door policy for countries that seek membership and denied that the alliance is “expanding aggressively eastward.” “We respect if you don’t want NATO membership. But of course, we also respect if you want NATO membership,” he told RFE/RL, adding that those countries cannot “live in a world where Moscow decides what [its] neighbors can do or not do. For the first time, Stoltenberg said that Georgia and Ukraine have “separate and independent responsibilities” when it comes to their NATO applications, suggesting a decoupling of the two countries’ candidacies.
Georgia and several other countries, including Latvia, Austria, the United States, Sweden, Romania, Lithuania, Germany, Poland, the European Union, Estonia, Norway, and France, have condemned the illegal holding of the Russian presidential “elections” in the occupied Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region. “The EU considers the Russian presidential election polling stations opened in occupied breakaway regions of Abkhazia & South Ossetia without consent of the Georgian Government illegal,” reads the statement of the EU Delegation to Georgia.
Political movement People’s Power, a spin-off of the ruling Georgian Dream party, officially registered as a political party, pledging to participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections and overcome the 5% threshold. During a founding congress, the party adopted its charter and structure and unanimously elected former Georgian Dream MP Sozar Subari as the party’s leader. The anti-western People’s Power championed the restriction of foreign-funded CSOs and initiated the infamous “Foreign Agents” bill.
A Mexican drug cartel has reportedly taken around 30 Georgians hostage at the border, demanding USD 90,000 as a ransom for their release, Mtavari Arkhi reported on March 16. The Georgian citizens, including women, have reportedly been held hostage for three days now. The Foreign Ministry claims that the Georgian Embassy in Mexico is in contact with the Mexican immigration service and is investigating the possible location of the citizens. For years, Georgian citizens have used the border with Mexico to cross illegally into the United States, facing enormous risks along the way.
On Saturday, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze visited Azerbaijan, holding meetings with the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, and his counterpart, Ali Asadov. According to the official press release, during the meetings in Baku, the parties discussed trade and economy, the Middle Corridor, and other strategically important projects in the areas of transport and energy. PM Kobakhidze thanked President Aliyev for supporting Georgia’s territorial integrity and reiterated the country’s readiness to contribute to the regional peace process.
On March 17, dozens of Russians in Tbilisi held a protest rally against Vladimir Putin as the presidential elections took place in Russia, where Putin faced virtually no opposition. “Enough with Putin,” “No to Occupation of Georgia,” and “Glory to Ukraine,” the protesters chanted, as observed by Civil.ge on-site. “I am a Russian political activist; I have been living in Georgia for four years because of criminal political persecution [against me]. Today at noon, there are rallies against Putin all over the world. People are going to the polls to vote against Putin, to give their vote to anyone but Putin,” Anton Mikhalchuk, an organizer of the rally, told Civil.ge on-site.
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) called on Georgia to rejoin the Anti-Corruption Action Plan (IAP) peer review program, following the country’s decision to withdraw from the 5th round of monitoring last year. In a separate statement, a group of local SCOs also expressed hope that Georgia would stop obstructing the OECD/ACN monitoring and return to the peer review program, emphasizing that Georgia is the only country that, for the first time in the past two decades, didn’t participate in the fifth round of the monitoring.
