Day: September 25, 2025
Does Moscow control Georgia’s foreign ministry
Georgia’s foreign ministry is under “personal and party control exercised from Moscow through Bidzina Ivanishvili,” international relations expert Giorgi Tumasyan said, commenting on the summons of Germany’s ambassador to Georgia, Peter Fischer.
Tumasyan argued that Georgia’s system of governance has effectively been dismantled, leaving the foreign ministry without competent staff and fully managed through party control.
On 24 September 2025, Fischer was summoned to the ministry in what he called an unusual move between friendly states.
According to the foreign ministry, run by the ruling Georgian Dream party, ambassadors cannot interfere in the host country’s internal affairs. The Georgian side also voiced concern over what it described as “attempts to push a radical agenda in the country.”
Giorgi Tumasyan:
“The so-called Georgian Dream – in reality the Russian Dream – has been in power for 13 years. Now they suddenly claim that ambassadors meeting with civil society supposedly violates the Vienna Convention. That is clearly false, because this practice has existed for at least 13 years, and until now the foreign ministry never made an issue of it.
In reality, Georgia’s system of governance has been dismantled. The foreign ministry has been purged of competent staff and placed under personal and party control, exercised from Moscow through Bidzina Ivanishvili.
The ministry issues statements designed to be translated into Russian and forwarded to Moscow. Relations with Russia were once a matter of pragmatic necessity, and we still pursue them today. But drawing historical parallels is unacceptable — the reality is different now.
Russia betrayed us. Who doesn’t remember the annexation of Kartli-Kakheti? What are they offering us now — a new Treaty of Georgievsk that would lead to another annexation and the elimination of our statehood? Is that their plan?
All state offices have been discredited. The parliamentary speaker behaves in such a way that we may one day have to rename the position just to avoid association with Papuashvili’s statements. If anyone is violating the Vienna Convention, it is Georgian Dream.”
