Speaker Papuashvili: Gvaramia echoes campaign calling for surrender of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region to Russia; those behind it must back off

“European Union membership holds absolutely no value for Georgia without Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region; everyone must bear this reality in mind,” Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia Shalva Papuashvili told reporters during a press briefing.

The Parliament Speaker was responding to recent remarks made by Nika Gvaramia, a leader of the opposition Ahali party, who claimed: “Abkhazians do not like Georgians and, let’s be honest, we do not like Abkhazians either. We are enemies right now, and enmity cannot be replaced by love; that has never happened anywhere.”

When journalists asked the Speaker why opposition figures have ramped up their rhetoric on Abkhazia in a noticeably negative way, Papuashvili asserted that this was an overt propaganda drive directed from abroad.

“I believe no one harbours any remaining doubts that these were mere slips of the tongue, whether from Gia Baramidze, Mikheil Saakashvili, or Nika Gvaramia. Gvaramia is simply echoing what was said before. This is part of a coordinated campaign, and Gvaramia himself effectively outlined its true objective.

He made a completely inappropriate comparison between Abkhazia and Karabakh. He suggested that just as Armenia managed to move past and discard the trauma of Karabakh, thereby opening the door to a new phase in its relations with Brussels, Georgia too should cast aside its own trauma to forge closer ties with Brussels. This is the core of the narrative: Georgia entering the EU without Abkhazia and Tskhinvali. It is a campaign visibly orchestrated directly from abroad.

The very narrative pushed upon Ukraine—that it must concede territory to speed up development and secure its European future—is now being actively deployed here. It shares the same subtext Gvaramia applied to Karabakh and the same hints dropped to Moldova over Transnistria: forcing Georgia into the EU without Abkhazia and Tskhinvali.

Let me state this once more, clearly enough for every domestic propagandist and every foreign sponsor backing this campaign to hear: EU membership holds no value whatsoever for Georgia without Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region. Everyone needs to remember this and abandon these testing balloons. Gvaramia repeating these campaign points, which ultimately amounts to handing Abkhazia and Tskhinvali over to Russia, stands zero chance of taking root among the Georgian public. To those commissioning this campaign, I say plainly: cease these attempts,” Papuashvili declared.