Russia and Georgia preparing third format of dialogue

Russia and Georgia preparing third format of dialogue

Vice-speaker of the Georgian parliament, one of the leaders of the ruling Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party Giorgi Volski does not exclude the creation of a platform for negotiations between Tbilisi and Moscow at the parliamentary level. He commented on the statement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that Moscow stands for the development of contacts between Russian and Georgian parliamentarians, and ready for contacts at other levels.

"If it is necessary to open the third line, then it is worth thinking about," Sputnik-Georgia cited Volsky as saying.

This week, three Georgian parliamentarians from the opposition Alliance of Patriots of Georgia held a meeting with the State Duma deputies in Moscow. They agreed on the creation of an inter-parliamentary working group.

Currently, the dialogue between Russia and Georgia is held in the framework of the Geneva discussions and regular meetings in Prague between the special representative of the Georgian prime minister for relations with Russia, Zurab Abashidze, and Russia's State Secretary - Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin.

The head of the Institute of Management Strategy, Petre Mamradze, speaking to a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, explained that Volsky's statement is interesting because it extends the participation of Georgian political forces in a possible new format of the Russian-Georgian dialogue. "Volsky represents the majority in the parliament - the Georgian Dream party - while the initiative to create such a format came from the parliamentary minority," he noted.

"It can be about a unrestricted import of Georgian textbooks into the territory of South Ossetia and Abkhazia for all who want to learn Georgian. The Russia-Georgia-NATO format is also interesting: they want to show that NATO is in no way going to use the territory Georgia to threat Russia," Petre Mamradze recalled, adding that Volsky had recently said that the format of the Russian-Georgian parliamentary dialogue would not make sense without the participation of international organizations as intermediaries.

At the same time, the establishment of contacts between the deputies of the two countries is extremely important, the political scientist stressed. "We remember the statements made by President Vladimir Putin that if Georgians and Ossetians, Georgians and Abkhazians agree, it's their business .In that case, the main thing is that the quality of people's lives should improve. But the trouble is that the Georgian Dream party is very afraid of criticism from Saakashvili and UNM, accusations that Bidzina Ivanishvili is a Russian oligarch, and that the ruling party is the fifth column. That is why for almost five years they have not made any real steps in establishing contacts with Russian parliamentarians," he drew attention.

"I see that Georgian society has a very positive attitude towards this parliamentary initiative. And he Georgian Dream party is trying to protect its position for the rating in order to prevent the Alliance of Patriots from becoming more popular," Petre Mamradze predicts.

The task of the dialogue between parliamentarians will be influence on the Georgian and Russian authorities. "As part of the dialogue, more Russian deputies will be able to make sure that, first, NATO is not going to take Georgia into its ranks and it cannot threaten Russia from the territory of Georgia, because Russia has many bases around. And humanitarian issues, of course," the head of the Institute of Management Strategy concluded.

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