“I congratulate every citizen of Georgia on living in a peaceful, united, successful, and strong country,” Georgia’s Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili told the GPB First Channel.

According to Botchorishvili, the independence and sovereignty that the country has achieved must be preserved.

“I salute everyone on today. This is truly the most significant day in our country’s history. I congratulate everyone, every Georgian, and every citizen of Georgia on living in a peaceful, united, successful, and strong state. This independence and sovereignty that our country has achieved, which didn’t come cheap to Georgia – this quite expensive independence and sovereignty must be preserved. This is the struggle we are engaged in daily. Of course, special importance is given to Georgia’s positioning, its representation beyond borders, our relationship with partners, and generally Georgia’s role on the international stage.

This underscores the vital importance of sovereignty and independence—the nation’s capacity to make its own decisions and to independently ensure its development, peace, and stability. This challenge that stands before the country today once again teaches and shows us how important it is to fight for and protect precisely our country’s sovereignty and national interests. We do this daily and will continue doing so in the future.

May 26 is the best opportunity to draw everyone’s attention to Georgia. Georgian embassies are actively carrying out activities so that Georgian culture and Georgia are properly represented beyond borders,” Botchorishvili noted.

Botchorishvili also responded to the question of what she would say to those people who claim that “they should be the ones to review the troops and take the salute, that the people gathered here have no moral right to attend the military oath-taking ceremony.”

“My message to these people is that if we all truly understand what our country’s sovereignty, identity, and interests mean, then such misguided statements and thoughts won’t arise. Distinction is not something bad. If we have different opinions regarding certain issues, this is normal, but what’s important is that we agree on one thing – that protecting our country’s interests, especially beyond borders, requires unity. Without this, it would probably be hard for us to protect our country’s sovereignty and independence. I wish for Georgia to attain this very unity, enabling the country to present itself as one cohesive nation on the international stage,” Maka Botchorishvili declared.