Ex-Security Top Figure Initiates Urgent Meeting over Russia-US Syria Turmoil
By Tea Mariamidze
Thursday, April 12
Levan Bodzashvili, former deputy secretary of Georgia’s National Security Council, says the Security Council of Georgia has to discuss the recent developments in Syria, where Russia and the US may get involved in a serious clash.
“The Security Council must be summoned. The West is already engaged in an active phase of the Cold War with Russia, and it means not direct, but various forms of attack on weak points by the two opposing sides, including through military provocations.
“Georgia's exclusion from this scenario is not right. Therefore, it is important that the top political authorities consolidate in order to assess the existing threats and plan the necessary measures on the political level,” Bodzashvili stated.
On the question whether the current Security Council is effective or not and whether it will be able to make any major decision in this political situation, Bodzashvili believes this is the format that has to be activated despite of its shortcomings.
“Now it is not the time when internal political disputes are more important than ongoing developments around our region and which needs to be responded at least at preventive level," says Bodzashvili.
The US President Donald Trump tweeted on Wednesday that Russia should "get ready" for missiles to be fired into Syria, in response to an alleged chemical attack last weekend.
Senior Russian figures stated they would meet any US strikes with a response.
Trump had promised a "forceful" reply to the suspected attack.
President Bashar al-Assad's government, which receives military backing from Russia, denies being behind any chemical attack, BBC reports.
In his tweet, Trump called Assad a "gas killing animal".
On Saturday, Syrian opposition activists, rescue workers and medics said the rebel-held town of Douma in the Eastern Ghouta region had been attacked by government forces using bombs filled with toxic chemicals.
The Syrian-American Medical Society said more than 500 people had been found with symptoms "indicative of exposure to a chemical agent" and on Wednesday the World Health Organization demanded access to the area to verify reports from its partners that 70 people had died, BBC says.
