Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky Thursday pledged the Czech Republic backs Georgia on its path to the EU as “Georgia is part of Europe and the Czech Republic wants the country in the European Union.”

In a joint press point with his Georgian colleague Ilia Darchiashvili, FM Lipavsky continued: “It also creates some obligations, and I assured the Minister that we fully respect our partners, even though there might be some different opinions, but we fully respect them.”

The Minister also vowed that the Czech Republic fully respects and supports Georgia’s territorial integrity, and condemns Russian activities in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.”

Setkal jsem se s mým gruzínským protějškem Iljou Darčiašvilim ??. Česko podporuje suverenitu a územní celistvost Gruzie a její evropské aspirace. Oceňuji, že pan ministr na svou první zahraniční cestu zamířil do ??. Těším se na další spolupráci! pic.twitter.com/a9YkrDiHEt

— Jan Lipavský (@JanLipavsky) April 14, 2022

Alluding to the economic cooperation between the two courtiers, Lipavsky said, “there is a huge potential for further strengthening of our economic cooperation and there is also great potential for further investments as well as trade exchange, last year, in 2021, the Czech Republic invested over 82 million $ in Georgia and that’s become the third biggest investment.”

“I told the Minister today that we are ready to offer cooperation in various areas, such as the energy sector, and not only the cooperation but our know-how experience in a sector such as energy sector, agriculture, or environmental protection and ecology and, of course, I assured the Minister that Georgia remains to be one of the six priority countries in terms of our development assistance,” FM Lipavsky stressed.

Grateful to ??FM @JanLipavsky for hospitality& meaningful meeting. Covered a set of issues, incl. ??’s ??perspective, our progress on t/reform track, alarming security situation across t/region. We highly value that ?? remains high on t/agenda during??Presidency of t/?? Council. pic.twitter.com/TNcBUxTXSb

— Ilia Darchiashvili (@iliadarch) April 14, 2022