By Vestnik Kavkaza
At the end of 2014 President of Georgia Giorgi Margvelashvili confirmed his readiness to meet Vladimir Putin and expressed hope of building a dialogue. “I hope that at some point we will build rational relations with Putin,” Margvelashvili told the TV-Company ‘Imedi.’ However, diplomats of Russia and Georgia are not communicating on a possible meeting of the two presidents at the moment. The contradictions are too great.
Meanwhile, the results of a public opinion poll which was conducted at the same period by the non-governmental research organization of the Institute of Eurasia confirmed Georgians’ intention to build relations with Moscow. 32% of respondents supported joining NATO; and 40% criticized it. The results differed from the data of 2008 when 77% of the Georgian population supported the country’s membership in NATO. The head of the Institute of Eurasia, Gulbaat Rtskhiladze, says that the results of the opinion poll of 2008 were falsified. He notes that respondents call Russia ‘a priority partner’ of Georgia during the latest survey.
Artur Atayev, head of the sector of Caucasus Research of the Research Center of Problems of Former Soviet Republics of the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies, told Vestnik Kavkaza that “every time I go to Georgia, I feel that the majority of the population have no hostility toward Russia. There's no Russophobic policy. The political establishment has it. The media produce this information. But we cannot say that Georgia has a negative attitude toward Russia.”
Atayev says that the latest survey held by the Eurasia Institute reflects that 63% of Georgia's population has a negative attitude to NATO: “Neither NATO nor the European Union are ready to provide protection for Georgia by economic, political or military means. According to the initial estimates of the treaty of association with Georgia, more than 7000 items of Georgian goods can be exported to the European Union, but only of 3% of the goods are actually exported. There are no economic, geopolitical or any other prerequisites for becoming a member of the European Union. This trend is wrong, but it is accepted today by the political establishment. I am sure that eventually Georgia will change its attitude toward Russia.”
