Georgia's ruling party takes offence at Zelenskyу because of his outrage over Saakashvili
Irakli Kobakhidze, Chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party, has called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s outrage about the condition of the imprisoned former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili and his request that the Georgian ambassador return to Tbilisi "offensive".
Source: European Pravda, referring to Georgian Channel One
Details: According to Kobakhidze, "Zelenskyy's move with regard to Saakashvili is offensive", but at the same time, Kobakhidze stressed, Tbilisi wants to "remain friendly with the Ukrainian authorities, even if unilaterally, because this country is at war".
At the same time, the leader of Georgia’s ruling party added that he does not want to delve too deeply into this topic since "the case concerns the president of a country that is at war".
Quote: "But in general, this position of the authorities is offensive to us. The fact that, as our opponents themselves admitted, specific high-ranking Ukrainian officials were involved in sending Saakashvili to Georgia was offensive in itself, and today, when the same government is demanding Saakashvili's return to Ukraine, this, of course, contains traces of offence," Kobakhidze said.
Background:
- The day before, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed outrage at the condition of imprisoned former president Mikheil Saakashvili and announced that Ukraine has asked the Georgian ambassador to return to Tbilisi because of this.
- Zelenskyy said that Russia is "killing Ukrainian citizen Mikheil Saakashvili with the hands of the Georgian authorities" and recalled that Kyiv has repeatedly asked Tbilisi to agree to Saakashvili's return to Ukraine, and Western partners have offered options.
- On 3 July, Mikheil Saakashvili, the imprisoned ex-president of Georgia, participated in a court hearing for the first time since February via a video connection from the Vivamed clinic. He looks extremely emaciated.
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