FM Botchorishvili: This is yet another attempt to weaponise international bodies for special interest groups

“This is yet another attempt to weaponise international organisations and institutions for the political agendas of narrow interest groups targeting Georgia,” stated the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, Maka Botchorishvili.

Maka Botchorishvili was commenting on the upcoming debate regarding a resolution on Georgia, which asserts that “democratic backsliding in Georgia continues unabated,” scheduled for June 24 in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

The Foreign Minister emphasised that undermining the credibility of international institutions through such tactics is entirely unacceptable.

“They are pulling out all the stops to ensure that this narrative regarding Georgia, which has already been cemented in numerous resolutions, is echoed across every single institution and adopted in various legislative formats. This perfectly illustrates how international organisations are being weaponised as political instruments. We have witnessed this across diverse bodies; we see it continuously in the European Parliament and within the Council of Europe. There was even an attempt to use the OSCE, as you will recall, through the invocation of the Moscow Mechanism against Georgia.

We frequently raise this issue with our partners. It is entirely unacceptable for the credibility of international institutions to be eroded by such methods,” Botchorishvili stated.

Furthermore, when asked by a journalist whether the Council of Europe bases its resolutions on data supplied by domestic opposition groups, Botchorishvili replied that the interests of narrow political factions drive this.

“Indeed, our opposition is hardly so omnipotent that the entire world hangs on their every word. That is not the case. This is exactly why we maintain that these are the interests of narrow political factions, which the opposition merely serves,” Botchorishvili noted.