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“Irina Sarishvili met with US Ambassador to Georgia John Tefft”

Akhali Taoba reports that former presidential candidate Irina Sarishvili met with US Ambassador to Georgia John Tefft on January 11.

After the meeting, Sarishvili told journalists she spoke to the ambassador about the results of the January 5 presidential election, adding that conversation focused on Georgia’s NATO integration.

“My main question was whether NATO was going to deploy troops on Georgian territory, though the ambassador gave me a negative answer. Tefft does not have information about Georgia’s possible membership in NATO,” Sarishvili said.

Sarishvili said she will ask the Central Election Commission to hold another referendum on the country’s NATO integration.



“Mikheil Saakashvili: Georgia will become one of the most competitive states!”

President-elect Mikheil Saakashvili gave an interview to Arabic-language news network Al Jazeera on January 11, Rezonansi writes.

He spoke about the January 5 early presidential election, as well as about Georgian-Russian and Georgian-American relations.

The country has gone through difficult times, Saakashvili said, but promised Georgia would soon be one of the most successful countries in the world.

“A democratic presidential election was held in Georgia on January 5. Many presidential candidates took part in it. I admit that in these elections, we were not as successful as in 2004, but this is still normal. We passed plenty of painful reforms and we continue to fight for a better future,” Saakashvili said.



“U.S. European command delegation visited Georgia”

Akhali Taoba reports that a 30-person delegation from the US European Command visited Georgia on January 10. They were here, the newspaper writes, to plan military trainings with the Georgians.

The American delegation visited the Vaziani military base, as well as a navy base in Poti, before leaving on January 13.

The Defense Ministry said the international training exercise is scheduled for this July, and will include urban combat training.