Okruashvili explained himself

Former defense minister of Georgia, Irakly Okruashvili, living in Paris, accused two most uncompromising opponents of the president, and supporters of the opposition Georgian Party, of corruption and stupidity, and blamed them for the failure of an attempt to force President Mikheil Saakashvili to step down.

Okruashvili gave an interview to the Maestro TV-company and commented on the developments. The peak of the opposition meeting had to be May 25th, he said. On this day Okruashvili promised to come back to Tbilisi and head the national revolt against Saakashvili. He didn’t mention how he had planned to return to Georgia, as the police would have been waiting for him in the airport. Nobody believed his words.

Then the former speaker Nino Burdzhanadze demanded the route of Okruashvili’s visit to Georgia. She didn’t get it and broke up all links with Georgian Party. After another revolution had failed, Okruashvili’s party clashed. Levan Gachechiladze and Koka Guntsadze left it.

Later Georgian special services arrested members of close circle of Okruashvili and accused them of intention to overthrow legal power. It wasn’t a surprise, as Okruashvili stated about his intention to do it.

The arrested supporters of Okruashvili confessed that their former boss promised to come back directly through South Ossetia supported by Russian intelligent services, which were said to give him a troop of soldiers to reach Tbilisi.

The promise is ridiculous, and it is obvious to anyone but the dim-witted supporters of Okruashvili that Russian intelligent services wouldn’t help him in such a doubtful operation. He deceived them.

Of course, Moscow wants to rid of Saakashvili, but it doesn’t use such clumsy methods, which lead to breaking the agreement of 2008 reached with participation of President Sarkozi. It seems Okruashvili four-flashed, creating an image of close cooperation with Russia. Indeed, he didn’t plan to do anything in late May, but made his supporters believe him, which led to their arrest.


However, after the revolution failed, Okruashvili had to explain the fact he didn’t return to Georgia. In the interview to Maestro the former minister stated that, first of all, he was “given away to the authorities” by Leval Gachechiladze, who revealed the opposition plans and got $5 million from Saakashvili. Secondly, “Nino Burdzhanadze was too stupid to let me come back to Georgia.” Thus, everybody are guilty, but he.

Burdzhanadze replied to this that she has never trusted him and doesn’t want to deal with him. Gachechiladze preferred to keep silence. However, his supporter Guntsadze called Okruashvili a “degenerate politician’, who tries to justify his cowardice and infamy.

Georgy Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusively to VK