Ivanishvili Denies Targeting U.S., Repeats “Global War Party” Conspiracy, Warns of “Reputational Damage”

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The Georgian Dream leader, Bidzina Ivanishvili, published a lengthy letter denying he intended to target either the U.S. or the EU when talking about the “global war party” during his party’s campaign. He made references to U.S. conspiracy theories such as “deep state” and warned the U.S. of the potential “reputational damage” if they keep supporting the opposition.

The letter seemingly came in direct response to the Facebook card shared by the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi earlier in the day, which read, “Bidzina Ivanishvili knows his money linked to Credit Suisse is in the hands of the courts of Bermuda and Singapore, not the U.S. Why is he telling Georgians a different story?”

US Embassy card says: “Bidzina Ivanishvili knows his money linked to Credit Suisse is in the hands of the courts of Bermuda and Singapore, not the U.S.,” “So why is he “telling Georgians a different story.”

“The [U.S.] Embassy cannot cite any statement by me personally or any other leader of Georgian Dream, in which we accuse the U.S. or the EU of financial blackmail against us,” Ivanishvili said in his October 1 letter.

“We have clarified many times that we do not mean the U.S. nor the EU under the Global War Party. Moreover, we have specified there that the Global War Party has substantive influence over the politicians and bureaucrats in both the U.S. and the EU,” the letter reads, noting that Ivanishvili refused to meet with “U.S. politicians and bureaucrats” since “the probability of influence of global war party on each of them is quite substantial.”

Ivanishvili then references “one of the magistral lines of the ongoing presidential campaign in the United States” the themes of “oligarchic influence, informal rule, “deep state” and war party,” mentioning specifically candidate Donald Tramp, and Robert Kennedy Jr. He says this “global war party”is trying to “shield itself by U.S. and European Union and to portray as if Georgia has confrontation not with itself, but with the U.S. and EU.”

He claims that the Georgian Dream is “the political force doing everything to avoid the reputational damage to the U.S. and European Union in the eyes of the Georgian society.”

In what sounds like a thinly veiled threat, the letter then states that “if the Georgian society were to be confined that the change of government against the wishes of the Georgian people and return of the collective National Movement to power is the wish not of the Global War Party but of the U.S. and the European Union, the image of the U.S. and the European Union will be harmed irreversibly.”

Developing confrontation

Last week, while in New York for the UN General Assembly, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze told Georgian media that Bidzina Ivanishvili was being “blackmailed” following reports that the U.S. had drafted sanctions against Ivanishvili and was ready to impose them. Kobakhidze said: “He is already under de facto sanctions. His two billion dollars are already frozen in Europe, but now the blackmail continues in another form. You hear the threats of imposing official sanctions… They want to force Bidzina Ivanishvili to take steps that contradict Georgia’s national interests… This blackmail is doomed to failure.”

The statement came as PM Kobakhidze’s invitation to President Joe Biden’s New York reception was rescinded due to backtracking on democracy. The State Department officials also told the Voice of America that the administration was readying personal sanctions against Ivanishvili.

In an apparent attempt to mend the fences, PM Kobakhidze made a sudden about-face and called for revoking the highly criticized decision of the anti-corruption agency, which banned one of the major watchdogs – TI-Georgia – from observing elections.

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