BREAKING: U.S. Suspends Strategic Partnership with Georgia

Mathew Miller, the U.S. State Department Spokesperson stated on November 30 that U.S. suspended Strategic Partnership with Georgia. The decision comes after the ruling GD’s decision to unilaterally suspend EU accession negotiations.

Miller writes: “U.S. with EU regrets Georgian Dream’s decision to suspend EU accession. We condemn excessive force used against Georgians rightfully protesting this betrayal of their constitution—EU is a bulwark against Kremlin.”

The State Department official statement says that “Georgian Dream’s various anti-democratic actions have violated the core tenets of our U.S.-Georgia Strategic Partnership, which was based on shared values and commitments to democracy, rule of law, civil society, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and anti-corruption efforts.” As a result, the statement says, the United States has suspended this mechanism.

The statement further notes that GD’s decision to suspend Georgia’s EU accession process “goes against the promise to the Georgian people enshrined in their constitution to pursue full integration into the European Union and NATO.” The State Department notes that by suspending Georgia’s EU accession process, “Georgian Dream has rejected the opportunity for closer ties with Europe and made Georgia more vulnerable to the Kremlin.”

Noting that the Georgian people “overwhelmingly support integration with Europe,” the statement says that “United States condemns the excessive use of force by police against Georgians seeking to exercise their rights to assembly and expression, including their freedom to peacefully protest, and calls all sides to ensure protests remain peaceful.”

President of Georgia Salome Zurabishvili reacted to the State Department announcement stating: “The suspension of the US-Georgia Strategic Partnership is the tragic result of GD’s anti-democratic, anti-Western, anti-European, and anti-Georgian policies. It’s clearer than ever that the course they pursue leads only in one direction – toward Russia.”

The strategic partnership, reaffirmed in the US-Georgia Charter on Strategic Partnership, was signed on 9 January 2009. The first meeting of the Strategic Partnership Commission, held on in June 2009, established four bilateral working groups on priority areas identified in the Charter: democracy, defense and security; economic, trade and energy issues; and people-to-people and cultural exchanges.

The GD government’s relations with Georgia’s main strategic partner have deteriorated in recent two years as a result of the GD’s democratic backsliding, reflected, among other things, in the adoption of the law on foreign agents, its anti-Western rhetoric, the insinuations of the Global War Party trying to drag Georgia into the Russia-Ukraine war, the campaign of repression against the media, civil society and the opposition, and the falsified October 26 Parliamentary elections.

In April 2023 the US has imposed sanctions on corrupt judges representing the so-called ‘judicial clan’, as well as Bidzina Ivanishvili’s crony and former Prosecutor General Otar Partskhaladze. In may last year US Secretary of State Blinken announced a visa restriction policy for undermining democracy in Georgia and as well a Comprehensive Review of all US-Georgia cooperation. Restrictions include individuals responsible for suppressing civil society and freedom of peaceful assembly in Georgia through violence or intimidation. This year the US also imposed additional visa restrictions on GD officials and individuals responsible for Georgia’s democratic backsliding and human rights violations. Meanwhile, two bills – the Georgian People’s Act and MEGOBARI – have been introduced in the US Congress, providing for further steps and measures, including sanctions, in response to the GD’s anti-democratic policies. In July 2024, the US “indefinitely postponed” the joint exercises Noble Partner.

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