David Bakradze in Israel

By Peter Lukimson, exclusively to VK

David Bakradze, the Georgian parliament’s chairman, met during his working visit to Israel with the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, foreign minister Avigdor Liebermann, his Israeli counterpart Rubi Rivilin as well as with some other ministers and MPs. This visit was supposed to take place a year ago but was postponed due to the row over the Israeli businessmen imprisoned in Georgia.

Officially the topics of restoration of regular direct flights between the two states and the lifting of the visa regime for Georgian citizens were at the top of the visit’s agenda. Bakadze stressed that after visas are lifted for Israeli citizens coming to Georgia, Tbilisi expects return measures from Israel. Israeli officials said that the issue is now being reviewed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

However, it is obvious that unofficially some other issues were discussed too, for example, support for Israel's position in the UN by Georgia in return for diplomatic (and not only diplomatic) support for Georgia by Israel in Tbilisi’s conflict with Moscow. The same issue was discussed during the recent visit of Georgian Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze to Jerusalem.

And finally, after Bakradze’s meeting with Liebermann and Rivlin the issue of the Holy Cross Monastery was finally cleared up. Bakradze said that the Georgian side has launched negotiations with the Greek Orthodox Church and said that Georgia wants to keep the Israeli officials informed of the progress. In response, the Israeli FM once more stressed that Israel has no power over the monastery and won’t intervene in Georgian-Greek talks. At the same time, Israel could help Georgia by giving it some legal advice on the matter. At the end of his visit Bakadze expressed his hope that a group of Israeli MPs would visit Georgia soon, as such a visit would certainly promote the countries’ relations.