Interviews

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 …

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.   …

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 …

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 …

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 …

At the conclusion of Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili’s recent visit to Washington DC, three senior U.S. diplomats published a story, titled “Where Georgia is Headed.” The article, authored by William Courtney, Daniel Fried and Kenneth Yalowitz, reflects on the three ambassadors’ earlier report, dubbed “Georgia’s Path Westward.” To discuss …

Lieutenant General (Retired) Ben Hodges, Pershing Chair of Strategic Studies at the Center for European Policy Analysis, told Voice of America’s Ia Meurmishvili that NATO has reacted strongly to Russia’s aggression, and that the Alliance has not been as strong as it is now for a long time. LTG Hodges …

Marc Behrendt, Director for Europe and Eurasia programs at Freedom House (FH), spoke to Voice of America’s Nana Sajaia on Georgia’s worsened score in FH’s recent Nations in Transit report and the Georgian government’s criticism that followed its publication. What were the most striking issues that you observed in Georgia …

Jeffrey Mankoff. Photo: Center for Strategic and International Studies / Flickr Jeffrey Mankoff is deputy director and senior fellow at the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Zviad Adzinbaia spoke with him on behalf of Civil.Ge about prospects of advancing U.S.-Georgia bilateral security …

Svante Cornell. Photo: screengrab from youtube, lecture at ADA University Svante Cornell is the director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a research center affiliated with the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC) and the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ICDP). Zviad Adzinbaia spoke with him on …

Elena Pokalova is a professor at the National Defense University and an expert on security issues with a focus on terrorism and counterterrorism. On March 12, the Georgian Center for Security and Development hosted a roundtable discussion on radicalization and violent extremism that gathered government and think tanks professionals. Their aim: to …

A screengrab from the Islamic State’s Georgian-language propaganda video, 2015. Dozens of militants from Georgia have reportedly joined Daesh and other militants groups in Syria during the last few years. Experts have long warned that as the Islamic State disintegrated as a territorial entity, those who survived were likely to …

Giorgi Gakharia, the Minister of Interior. Photo: MIA Giorgi Gakharia was appointed the Minister of Interior and Deputy Prime Minister in November 2017, switching unusually from the portfolio of the Minister of Economy. One of the crucial positions in the cabinet, the Interior portfolio implies the highest level of trust …

MEP Rebecca Harms chairs the 60-member European Parliament Delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly. Photo: facebook.com/RebeccaHarmsMEP/ MEP Rebecca Harms, who chairs the 60-member European Parliament Delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, a parliamentary cooperation format uniting 110 lawmakers from the European Parliament and the Eastern Partnership countries, was in Georgia …