“There is no West, no East, no North, no South; no foreign intelligence service should have any business in Georgia,” declared the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, in response to reports circulated by French media, according to which France’s foreign intelligence agency was compelled to recall three of its officers stationed in Tbilisi.

Papuashvili stated plainly that there is no such thing as a friendly spy or a hostile spy, and that everyone, without exception, should cease their intelligence-gathering and espionage activities on Georgian soil.

“This is, as yet, only a French media article; I cannot say how far we can trust its contents. But as the article states, it appears two intelligence agents were recalled of their own accord. If that is true, then I ask you: when a foreign country’s intelligence agents are operating inside your country, does that warm relations between states? And when those agents leave, does that cool them? I genuinely do not know. I am not certain what precisely is meant by all of this. What must be stated clearly, however, is that Georgia’s authorities and security services today have every means at their disposal to detect and expose intelligence operations on Georgian territory. Everyone should therefore be on notice.

There is no West here, no East, no North, no South. Everyone who is not part of this country, foreign intelligence has no place here whatsoever. There is no such thing as a friendly spy and a hostile spy. Everyone should abandon their spying and espionage — every one of them,” said Shalva Papuashvili.