PM Slams U.S., EU Ambassadors for “Interference,” “Diktat,” Challenges Them for TV Debate on Foreign Agent Law

In an official statement, PM Irakli Kobakhidze has leveled a series of accusations against U.S., European Union, and EU-member state ambassadors, accusing them of “interference” and of “substituting the opposition.” To address their “unsubstantiated criticisms,” PM Kobakhidze invited them to publicly debate the “foreign agents law.” The statement, suggesting an unprecedented break from diplomatic practice, comes on the eve of PM Kobakhidze’s visit to Berlin, where he publicly clashed with Chancellor Olaf Sholtz over this legislative proposal.

The statement opens by stating that Georgia “values and cares for the relations with partners” on the way to EU integration and welcomes discussion with ranking officials, including the ambassadors. It goes on to say, however, that the Ambassadors “are trying to assume the functions of the legislator, participate in the legislative process and dictate to the supreme body of the representative democracy” which laws it should pass or not.

The PM goes on to argue that this is “not in accordance with diplomatic standards” but “is to a certain extent received with understanding” by the government given “the scarcity of political and intellectual resources of the opposition.”

The statement then goes to argue with indignation, that the diplomats “do not respond to our arguments with valid counter-arguments” while meeting behind the closed doors and instead “persist to make groundless political statements in public space.”

Decrying the statements of “several foreign diplomats” about the foreign agent’s law, which were, according to PM, “bereft of any argument and justification,” he laments the fact that the citizens may take ambassadors’ statements and “generalize them to the whole of the relevant countries, which contains serious risks” of Georgians losing faith in partners.

PM Kobakhidze then calls the Ambassadors of the United States, the European Union, and the EU member states to hold a live TV discussion about the foreign agent’s law.

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