Speaker: Campaign underway to surrender Georgian territories to Russia; we will trade territorial integrity for no other pursuit

“A coordinated campaign is underway aimed at compelling Georgia to surrender its territories to Russia and abandon its national reunification, dripping into public discourse drip by drip,” Speaker of the Georgian Parliament Shalva Papuashvili has declared.

Papuashvili was asked to comment on recent remarks by former President Mikheil Saakashvili, who claimed that “anyone who thinks the path to restoring control over Abkhazia relies solely on winning over at most 50,000 Abkhazians has mush in their head instead of thoughts.”

According to the Speaker, Georgia’s two main national goals are the prosperity of its people and the reunification of the country, with no other objective taking precedence.

“Recently, we have witnessed an outright campaign directed against our country’s territorial integrity; I want to emphasise this. It began with Baramidze’s statement blaming Georgia and Georgian soldiers for war crimes during the 1990s conflict. Then came Gvaramia, who referred to it as a historical trauma that needs to be shed, drawing uncalled-for parallels with Armenia. He suggested that just as Armenia freed itself from the Karabakh trauma and opened up new prospects, we too should free ourselves from this trauma. This exposed their true vision regarding the country’s integrity. It is a continuation of the line consistently held by the collective United National Movement, including during their time in power; it is evident when Saakashvili claims that the Abkhazians detest us and nothing can fix it, implying that the policy of reconciliation is pointless. This aligns with Bokeria’s assertion that reconciliation is futile, as well as Gvaramia’s view that this trauma blocks our development and must be discarded so we can look forward.

All of this demonstrates a coordinated campaign to force Georgia to hand over its territories to Russia and renounce territorial integrity and national reunification. They are feeding this to us drop by drop, incrementally, adding arguments, like Gvaramia’s parallels with Armenia, that new prospects will open up in return.

They tell Ukraine the same thing: compromise on territory to unlock greater development prospects. They tell Moldova the same regarding Transnistria. Now, it appears, they have turned to us.

A decisive line must be drawn immediately: there will be no compromise on our country’s territorial integrity for the sake of any other goal. It must be reiterated: the two fundamental national objectives of our nation are the prosperity of our people and the reunification of our country. No other objective stands above these. Therefore, we will not trade Georgia’s territorial integrity for any other pursuit,” Shalva Papuashvili stated.