U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan reiterated U.S. concerns about Georgia’s election process on October 23. He spoke about Georgia while answering Globalnew.ge‘s question at the Brookings Institution in Washington, where Sullivan delivered a speech on President Biden’s international economic strategy and vision.
“We’ve made our concerns very clear about the trajectory of democratic institutions and the electoral process in Georgia, and we remain very concerned about it. Ultimately, the future of Georgia should be decided by the Georgian people in a free and fair process. I don’t think anyone in Georgia wants to mortgage their country to any other country, including the PRC,” – Jake Sullivan said.
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze responded to Sullivan’s statement by saying that Georgia has a 3,000-year history in which no one has “not only dared to mortgage Georgia, but even to use such terminology”. Kobakhidze said that after the elections and the war in Ukraine, relations with the U.S. will be reset, and “no one will dare to tell Georgia that it must go into the forest like a partisan and fight for global interests from there.” He was alluding to the story told by GD Honorary Chairman Bidzina Ivanishvili in his interview on 22 October, in which he claimed that a high-level of an unnamed country had allegedly suggested to former Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili that Georgians should go to war against Russia and “go into the woods like partisans”, promising support.
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