“Anyone juggling numbers and words to distort this debate is a trained bull from Ivanishvili’s circus, spraying lies in every direction; and if anyone wants to talk about fascist connotations, they can look closer to home, in Mongolia,” said Tazo Datunashvili, a member of Lelo – Strong Georgia.

His party’s concern, he stressed, is not migration per se, but the formation of ethnically concentrated enclaves near Tbilisi and Gonio, two of Georgia’s most strategically significant locations.

“As regards our position on migration, unlike Georgian Dream, we are not stoking ethnic hatred in this country. What we are saying is that ethnically concentrated enclaves must not be allowed to form near Tbilisi and Gonio, two of Georgia’s most important locations. Enclave settlement poses a challenge for Georgia, given its painful history with enclave development. Papuashvili either doesn’t know this or, like the classic traitor he is, turns a blind eye to it,” Datunashvili said.

Lelo members, he emphasised, are not raising migration as a problem in itself; they are raising the specific problem of enclaves.

“Georgian Dream is staging a shameful masquerade. Go and look at the Migration Service website, where they have a demonstratively revolting display of deportations. We are not calling for anyone to be expelled from this country. What we are saying is that enclave development and communitarian urban development have always been a problem in this country, remain a problem now, and will continue to be one in the future.

But traitors, enemies of the homeland, and Russian agents have no interest in that; instead, they project onto others their own darkest, most thuggish instincts, as with this business of restricting migration and driving people out of the country. Our problem is with enclave development, with the massive influx from states that are hostile towards us, with the Russian Federation, but then, what is the point of trying to have a sensible, constructive conversation with people who spend their evenings sipping tea at receptions hosted by the Islamic Republic of Iran, busy flirting with a blood-soaked regime?” Datunashvili said.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze earlier issued a video address in which he spoke on migration, stating that “against the backdrop of events unfolding in Europe, the public’s concern and interest in the question of migration is entirely to be welcomed, as it is the wish of every patriot that Georgia should uphold and preserve its national and religious identity.”

Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili, for his part, declared that “the Prime Minister has put an end to the speculation on migration being waged in Georgia, with fascist overtones, by the so-called pro-European forces.”