By Georgi Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
The Georgian President has confirmed that he is ready to meet his Russian counterpart. The statement was made in an interview with Rustavi-2 TV after he had called Russia an occupier.
Despite the harsh statements of the Georgian president, the Kremlin “is not burning bridges” over the River Kura. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed to TV-Imedi that Moscow was waiting for a signal from Tbilisi. Should such a signal come from the Georgian president, a meeting would be organized. In any case, Putin would not refuse to have one.
The position of the Russian leader has not always been that positive: in 2012, responding to a journalist’s question about the readiness of the Russian leader to meet with new Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, Vladimir Putin was quite harsh: “We certainly can meet, but I have no idea what we would be talking about with him.”
Why are the Georgian authorities missing a chance for direct negotiations with the Russian president? There are two internal political reasons for it.
First of all, President Margvelashvili needs firm guarantees that the agenda will include discussion of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, not just trade-economic relations. The Georgian authorities cannot exclude the problem of the breakaway republics. Otherwise ex-President Saakashvili’s followers will accuse them of selling out the interests of the country and recognizing the annexation of Georgian territories.
Secondly, the prime minister has the real power in Georgia, according to the Constitution. It is unacceptable for Irakli Garibashvili to see the president meet Putin because it would strengthen Margvelashvili’s positions in the elite, among the population and weaken his own influence in the Cabinet.
The government basically forbade the president from signing the EU Association Agreement, calling it the prerogative of the prime minister, and ruined his visit to the U.S. The prime minister can block the president’s meeting with his Russian counterpart.
Irakli Garibashvili would gladly talk with Vladimir Putin himself, if there were guarantees that the Abkhaz and the South Ossetian topics would be discussed, but there is little chance that the Russian president would agree to meet the prime minister of a small country, whatever the Georgian Constitution says about the powers of the Cabinet head.
Ex-Speaker of the Georgian Parliament Nino Burjanadze complained that President Margvelashvili “lacks the simple will to just pick up the phone and give Vladimir Putin a call.” “If I were the president, I would have met him long ago,” assures Burjanadze, reminding about the meeting with Putin in 2009. On the other hand, she was an opposition figure and Putin was the prime minister back then.
