The Georgian government and ruling party officials responded with outrage and disdain to U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration’s decision to disinvite Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze from the traditional UNGA reception.
“The Biden Administration rescinded Prime Minister Kobakhidze’s invitation to its annual UNGA reception and declined to meet with the Georgian delegation due to increasing concerns about the Georgian government’s anti-democratic actions, disinformation, and negative rhetoric about the United States and the West,” the U.S. Embassy in Georgia stated. The interpretations from the ruling party tried to downplay the official reasoning and spin the decision as a gesture of partisan support to the opposition.
“It’s not serious. They sent the invitation three days ago, and then it was rescinded,” said PM Kobakhidze, who, by a twist of fate, had been disinvited from the event that coincidentally fell on his birthday, September 25. Placing the decision in the context of the GD campaign, which insists that the opposition is being driven from the West, PM Kobakhidze described Biden’s decision as a last-ditch “humanitarian act of support” to the Georgian opposition. Yet, he argued, since the opposition is failing miserably, “it will have no practical effect.”
First Vice Speaker of Parliament Gia Volski said the move was a “political demarche” by the U.S., which “has an interest in seeing the UNM return to power.” He described the decision as a “lifeline” for the “collective UNM,” GD shorthand to refer to all pro-Western opposition parties and critics.
Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili reiterated that the decision was “one of the manifestations of interference in the internal affairs of the country.” He added that the U.S. decision breached the “rules of hospitality,” which is the least the U.S. “could learn from the Georgian people.”
“First, the invitation was sent. Then they decided to use this action to help and nudge the radical opposition, which is […] gasping for breath,” Tbilisi Mayor, GD’s Secretary General Kakha Kaladze reacted.
Guram Macharashvili of People’s Power spun a conspiracy theory, saying “perhaps the US president did not know” about the matter, adding cryptically, “It seems that external powers are in action there, too.”
“They invited him on purpose, only to disinvite him later,” outraged majority leader Mamuka Mdinaradze posted on social media.
Foreign Minister Ilia Darchiashvili stuck with a more diplomatic tone: “We are very sad that such a decision has been made,” he said, expressing Georgia’s continued readiness for “open and honest” talks with its “strategic partner.”