Georgia’s President in Slovakia
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Wednesday, May 17
Georgia’s President Giorgi Margvelashvili has asked his Slovak counterpart to support Georgia’s interests at this year’s NATO summit in Brussels.
"Naturally, when there is a request for the President to assist a country, especially in such a formal format as NATO, this request must be based on high culture and deep cooperation between the countries, on the one hand, and on personal relations, on the other hand. I want to tell you that I started my meeting with the President by asking him to support Georgia at the NATO summit. Precondition for this is the relations between our states and my personal attitude to the Slovak counterpart. I felt comfortable when I asked him to support Georgia,” said Margvelashvili.
The Slovak President stated he was ready to cooperate.
“Slovakia is a member of NATO and we want Georgia to be safe and secure,” President Andrey Kiska at a joint briefing.
The Slovak President expressed hopes that NATO will make a clear signal in support of Georgia.
“The next NATO summit will be the first summit in which the new President of the United States, Mr. Trump, will take part, and I'm looking forward to hearing messages that will be delivered by him. It was a great pleasure for me to hear that the United States stands beside Georgia and completely condemns the occupation of Georgia's territory by Russia.
“The Georgian population needs to feel secure. The worst thing is when people do not feel safe; therefore, we expect a clear signal from the NATO summit that the population of these countries needs strong support, "Kiska said.
In another note, Georgia expressed interest in developing tourism between Georgia and Slovakia.
The importance of further deepening relations with the European Union in the areas of communication, energy and transport infrastructure was also emphasized.
President Margvelashvili thanked President Kiska for granting Georgian students scholarships and enabling future cooperation in the area of education.
The Georgian President said his country aims to become a new educational training center for youth from Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the CIS countries and to offer them an opportunity to obtain Western-standard education at affordable prices.
At the meeting with the Speaker of the National Council of the Slovak Republic, Andrej Danko, Margvelashvili stated it is of the utmost importance to keep the Russia-Georgian conflict high on the international agenda, as Russia's creeping occupation has been transformed into an obvious annexation.
The President then highlighted the importance of Georgia’s partners’ active engagement in developing the country's anti-annexation policy.
