“There are no arguments. I would tell this to all critics, among them hired lobbyists, who took much money during Saakashvili’s government in office and afterwards,” said Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili.

Georgian PM’s remark came in response to the question: “Opponents accuse you that under the motive of the country’s unification, the government rejects NATO, and the statement made in Bratislava is the declaration of this.”

According to Garibashvili, statements as if the government does not want NATO are devoid of arguments in the same way as the statements made about Mikheil Saakashvili (ex-president).

“In recent years, they spent millions on a campaign to tarnish the country’s image. Saakashvili’s family paid millions to American and European companies to damage our country’s reputation. I had to explain repeatedly to our European colleagues that we do not torture or poison Saakashvili. The Strasbourg court responded to everything and all slanders with a simple but strong judgment. All the dirty campaigns, waged against our country and its image, all defamations that came as a flow in the world, were washed away with a fair and correct decision. Strasbourg ruled that the Georgian government speaks the truth and Saakashvili tells lies. You know well that the entire world received information that we poisoned, killed, and tortured him, but it turned out that nothing happened. All these criticisms and accusations are as groundless as their statements regarding NATO as if we no longer want either NATO or the European Union.

We are the only power which did its best and brought tangible results to our people: Association Agreement, free trade, visa-free regime, European Perspective and NATO joint military base, which I opened together with NATO Secretary General. We should draw conclusions based on outcomes instead of a false narrative of the opponents,” Irakli Garibashvili said.