Opinion

Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid said that Georgia’s new president should make “loud and open declaration” that s/he will be the president for all people and all interest groups. “You will be able to unite your people, to support the objectives, which should be actually the objectives which you see from …

“For Georgia to succeed on the path to reform, is the ultimate and most important way to beat Vladimir Putin,” Wess Mitchell, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, said today at the Tbilisi International Conference “World in 2018: Upside Down?” co-hosted by the the McCain …

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius, who participated in the international conference in Tbilisi on September 11-12, stated yesterday that if the Russian government “will not realize that they are going to[wards] the stalemate situation” that would “be danger to everyone” around. “I am always saying, Russia is not a superpower, today Russia …

On the seventeenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, Voice of America’s Ia Meurmishvili interviewed Nicholas (Nick) Rasmussen, senior director of the McCain Institute’s Counterterrorism Program, a national security expert with over twenty-seven years in U.S. government service.  Ia Meurmishvili anchors …

On October 28, Georgian citizens will head to polls to elect their fifth president for a six-year term. This will be the last time that the head of state will be elected through direct ballot. Voice of America’s Ani Chkhikvadze has asked Donald Jensen, Kenneth Yalowitz and William Courtney to comment on the …

With the passing of Senator John McCain, the United States has lost a visionary politician and a devoted statesman, a man of extraordinary courage and high moral integrity. The country of Georgia, few thousand miles away, has lost a true friend and a staunch ally, a passionate defender of freedom …

Ani Chkhikvadze of Voice of America’s Georgian Service interviewed Dalibor Rohac, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), on recent political and economic developments in Central and Eastern Europe. There is a lot of discussion on the backsliding of countries like Hungary and Poland, as well as on …

Stephen Hadley was President George W. Bush’s National Security Advisor in 2005-2009. In an exclusive interview with the Voice of America’s Georgian Service, he recalls the events leading up to the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the steps the Bush Administration took in response to this aggression.   …

Thornike Gordadze, former Georgian minister for European Integration, argues in a “Le Monde” opinion column that the 2008 Russian-Georgian war gave Vladimir Putin the certainty that brutality paid off. Yet at the time, this war that only lasted few days, did not seem to be of great importance. Ten years …

On the tenth anniversary of the Russo-Georgian war, its roots and consequences, Anna Kalandadze, chief of Voice of America’s Georgian service in Washington interviewed Matthew Bryza, a career U.S. diplomat who served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in 2005-2009. What is Georgia 10 …

To reflect on the 10 year anniversary of the Russo-Georgian war, we continue asking: Ten years after the war, what would you say was its impact on Georgia’s trajectory? This time, our respondents are four Georgian professors – Ghia Nodia, Tornike Sharashenidze, Eka Akobia and Kornely Kakachia. Ghia Nodia, director …

To reflect on the 10 year anniversary of the Russo-Georgian war, we have asked Georgia-watchers: Ten years after the war, what would you say was its impact on Georgia’s trajectory? Ted Jonas, lawyer: It’s difficult to disentangle the impact of the war on Georgia’s political and economic trajectory because so …

Op-ed by Michel Kazatchkine, former Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, and member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy. The Parliament of Georgia is currently engaged in a promising debate to reform its drug laws, possibly by ending the criminalization of drug use …

On June 13, Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili announced his resignation citing differences of opinion on economic matters with the ruling Georgian Dream party members, as well as the GD founder and leader, Bidzina Ivanishvili. Voice of America’s Ani Chkhikvadze has asked Davit Kramer, Paul Stronski, John Herbst and Kenneth Yalowitz …

A divide within the ruling Georgian Dream party has come to head yesterday, as Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili has announced his resignation citing differences of opinion with his party comrades, as well as – importantly – GD founder and leader Bidzina Ivanishvili. While the departure of PM Kvirikashvili has been …

Moscow aids and benefits from Nazi rise, but the roots of intolerance are home-grown I first met Petre Ghutidze in front of Tbilisi State University in 2014 at the demonstration to defend Sakdrisi Gold Mine; he was in charge of an amateur rock concert in support of ancient gold mine …

Op-ed by Mikheil Janelidze, the Foreign Minister of Georgia. This article originally appeared in the New Atlanticist, online publication by the Atlantic Council. Last week, Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria illegally recognized Abkhazia and Tskhinvali (so-called South Ossetia), two historic regions of Georgia, as independent states. This was done undoubtedly at the behest …

Voice of America’s Ani Chkhikvadze sat down with Ambassador Kurt Volker, U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, to discuss Georgia’s domestic and foreign affairs. Recently, Syria’s Assad Government recognized occupied Abkhazia and Ossetia as independent states. Why do you think we saw this right now, especially given that Georgia, as …

Q: Georgia broke off diplomatic relations with Syria over recognition by Assad’s regime of its two breakaway provinces. Was this a right step, in your mind? A: politically and legally this was the only natural step. A government is obliged to break off diplomatic relations with a country, which does …