July 7, 2025 - The South Caucasus News - SouthCaucasusNews.com

In an interview with RFE/RL’s Georgian Service, U.S. Ambassador to Georgia Robin Dunnigan said she had received a private letter from Georgian Dream addressed to the Trump administration, describing it as “threatening,” “insulting,” and “unserious,” and adding that it was “received extremely poorly in Washington.”

Dunnigan, who is set to leave Georgia after announcing her retirement in June, said that earlier this year, she traveled to Washington to meet with senior officials in the new U.S. administration “to talk about our Georgia policy” and to “have guidance on what they would like their first message to the Georgian government to be.” She said that after returning to Georgia, she met with Georgian Dream’s Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili and “clearly” laid out for her “two or three steps Georgian Dream could take to help set our relationship back on track.” Dunningan met with Botchorishvili on March 14.

“Three days later […] GD leadership sent a letter to me for the Trump administration,” Dunnigan said, noting that she would not have commented on the letter had GD Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze not mentioned it publicly himself. The letter, “frankly, was threatening, insulting, unserious, and was received extremely poorly in Washington,” Dunnigan noted, repeating, “Extremely poorly.”

“So it took us a while to come up with a response, that’s true,” Dunnigan said, adding, “I think it took a while because people were so surprised to get such a correspondence from leadership of one country to my country.”

She said that in the meantime, while the U.S. was preparing its response, Irakli Kobakhidze issued an open letter. In the open letter, published on May 13, Kobakhidze called on Trump and J.D. Vance, among others, to break their silence toward the GD government.

“Then, I went to the Prime Minister and said, ‘I have a response from Secretary Rubio that he has asked me to deliver to Bidzina Ivanishvili,” the Ambassador said.

She stressed that she had been asked to deliver the message “directly” to Bidzina Ivanishvili, who, she added, declined. “I was not asked to deliver it to the prime minister,” Dunnigan noted.

When asked whether she had inquired why the letter was to be delivered directly to Ivanishvili and not to the prime minister, Dunnigan responded, “I think most people in the world recognize that Bidzina Ivanishvili runs the government.”

The U.S. Embassy said on May 28 that Ambassador Dunnigan had requested a meeting with Bidzina Ivanishvili on May 22 to deliver a message from the U.S. administration and to once again relay specific steps Georgian Dream could take to “show it is serious about resetting its relationship with the United States.” However, Ivanishvili declined the request and, in his response statement, cited sanctions and fear of blackmail, among others, for refusing U.S. meetings.

Dunnigan further told RFE/RL’s Georgian Service that Ivanishvili’s stated goal of resetting relations between the two countries is “not that hard.”

“One of the first steps would be to stop the anti-American rhetoric. Stop saying things that aren’t true about the United States,” she said, stressing, “There is a lot that GD says that is not true about the United States: That we tried to start a second front here — not true. That my predecessor tried to foment revolution here — not true. That our strategic partnership is a partnership on paper only — not true. That I’m being recalled by my government — not true. I can go on and on.”

The comments are part of a preview from the interview. The article will be updated once the full interview is published.

Tensions Between the U.S. and Georgia

The ambassador’s remarks come amid continued tensions between Washington and Tbilisi, driven by concerns over democratic backsliding, pressure on civil society, and inflammatory statements by ruling party officials.

On November 30, the U.S. suspended the strategic partnership with Georgia. The decision came two days after the Georgian Dream unilaterally suspended EU accession efforts. On December 27, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned the ruling party’s founder and its honorary chairman, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who is widely believed to be Georgia’s informal ruler.

In May, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bipartisan MEGOBARI Act, which calls for targeted sanctions against individuals in Georgia found to be undermining democratic norms.

On May 21, responding to the question by Rep. Joe Wilson during a hearing at U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio referred to GD as an “anti-American government,” saying the U.S. will assess whether it is in its national interest to have an “anti-American government governing an important part of the world.” Secretary Rubio noted that relations with Georgia are “currently under review.”

Tbilisi tried to downplay Rubio’s remarks, accusing Rep. Joe Wilson, a staunch critic of the GD government, of misleadingly framing the question to the Secretary of State by calling the Georgian Dream an “anti-American government.”

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