Nikoloz Samkharadze, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Georgian Parliament and Head of the Georgian Delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, is attending the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s Winter Session.

Nikoloz Samkharadze delivered a speech at the Political Affairs and Security Committee, criticizing the upcoming report by the German rapporteur for failing to mention Georgia when addressing Russia’s occupations.

“I have to bring back your attention to item number three. I listened very carefully to the rapporteur, and I must say that I was surprised and very concerned. When speaking about Russian aggression and occupation, Georgia was not mentioned, and when speaking about the situation in Georgia, the Russian occupation was not mentioned at all.

While I agree that political polarization is a challenge to Georgia’s democracy, it’s not a major threat. Major threat is the Russian occupation of 20 per cent of our territory and also 8 per cent of our population, which is kicked out of their homes. I must remind you that Georgia and Ukraine are the only states where Russia occupied large parts of the sovereign soils.

And I also have to remind you that OSCE is one of the co-chairs of the Geneva International Discussions on a conflict between Georgia and Russia. Given the fact that in the last 17 years, there has been no progress on Geneva International Discussions, doesn’t mean that we have to put the issue aside and not mention it at all.

I also remind the audience that the Russian occupation started not in 2014, but in 2008 and Georgia was the first victim of Russian aggression. I hope that this was an unfortunate omission and I urge the rapporteur to include the Russian occupation of Georgia in the upcoming report. And I’m happy to work with you on these paragraphs.

In this light, let me also inform you that last Saturday, so-called presidential elections were held in Russian-occupied Abkhazia with polling stations opened on the territory of the Russian Federation itself, and I want to call on OSCE and all the member states to condemn these sham elections as they are held in contravention off the international law,” Nikoloz Samkharadze stated.