“Provocation took place in June by Georgian radicals had a negative impact on the process of normalizing bilateral relations,” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in his statement published earlier today.

Lavrov notes that “despite the absence of diplomatic relations, Russia is Georgia’s second trading partner and according to the statistics of 10 months of 2019, trade turnover amounted to $ 1.1 billion.”

“Unfortunately, provocation took place in June by Georgian radicals had a negative impact on the process of normalizing bilateral relations started in 2012. With regards to this fact, we were forced to temporarily ban flights between Georgia and Russia. We hope they will learn from this lesson.

Within the framework of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly in New York, the first meeting in 12 years was held between the Russian Foreign Minister and his Georgian counterpart. The sides had an honest talk on the problematic issues of bilateral relations. However, the remarks after the meeting from Tbilisi were unfortunate.

For our part, there is a constant interest in the consistent normalization of bilateral relations,” Russia’s foreign policy chief stressed.