Putin offers meeting to Margvelashvili

After his press secretary’s statement, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his readiness to meet his counterpart from Georgia. In spite of some predictions, Putin is not in such a hurry to use levers against Georgia and at first will make an attempt to regulate the relations.

So now it is Georgia’s turn to decide whether the two Presidents will meet or not and what the Georgian position will be if this meeting will take place.

We know that Putin’s press secretary, Dimitry Peskov, mentioned the possibility of Putin’s meeting with Margvelashvili. Later he commented that such an opportunity should not be excluded.

Georgian analysts and even President Margvelashvili himself did not take Peskov’s statement seriously. However, now the events have developed in a direction that already the Russian president has repeated this offer.

Before saying that, Putin positively evaluated the participation of Georgian athletes in the Sochi Olympic Games. According to him, the Olympic Games is an opportunity to regulate relations even where it seems impossible or complicated.

Overall observers comment that Putin spoke a lot about Georgia and that he expressed his goodwill towards Georgia.

This time, Margvelashvili responded immediately to Putin’s offer. However, he refrained from the immediate answer and stated that Putin’s remark should be seriously and thoroughly analyzed.

Margvelashvili also mentioned that Georgian-Russian relations are among the most painful and problematic issues for Georgia. Therefore, he promised to seriously analyze the current situation, receive consultations, and fix the country’s position.

He also commented that this type of step will give positive impulses to the Georgian-Russian relations and he will discuss the issue with his colleagues inside the country as well as arrange consultations with Western allies.

Later Margvelashvili added that currently the revived cultural and trade relations between the two neighboring countries is a precondition, which eventually should lead to the solution of the difficult political problems between Georgia and Russia.

He also mentioned that Russia did not receive any viable advantages by occupying Georgian territories. According to Margvelashvili, it is the background for solving the problem.

Margvelashvili insisted that the occupation of the Georgian territories is a hard step for Russia as well as for Georgia, so any new steps, which will relax the tension, are welcome.

Thus, Margvelashvili hinted that the matter of arranging a bilateral meeting depends on Russian goodwill regarding the territorial integrity of Georgia.