US congressmen’s National Security Strategy mentions Bidzina Ivanishvili
By Natalia Kochiashvili
Friday, June 12
On June 11th, US Ambassador Kelly C. Degnan visited the Red Cross Society Georgia’s office in Gori and met with Red Cross Society Georgia president Natia Loladze and Red Cross and Red Crescent Society International Federation office head in South Caucasus, Olga Jumaeva. They met with volunteers and discussed Gori’s office’s response to COVID-19. The three guests also met with the beneficiaries living in Gori to deliver food and hygiene packages. The Red Cross Society is enabled to support local communities during the COVID-19 pandemic through USAID financial aid.
As part of a trip to Gori, Ambassador Degnan discussed the effect of COVID-19 on the city and the region in general, as well as preparations for the upcoming elections and the effect on local communities of the continued illegal borderization activities along the Administrative Boundary Line with Gori Mayor and the Governor of Shida Kartli.
During her visit, the ambassador was asked about the document prepared by 13 Republican congressmen, which was recently published and said that ‘the richest man in Georgia, Bidzina Ivanishvili is a close ally of Putin’. Degnan said she was not yet aware of the document, due to her visit, however, she argued that this letter speaks of Congress’s high interest in Georgia and there is no doubt that the US-Georgia strategic partnership is as strong as ever.
“I have not seen the letter, I was in Gori, I do not know the details, but I will say from past experience, communication from the Congress means that they are very interested in Georgia, they recognise the importance of Georgia and they want its success,” said the ambassador.
Deganan explained that the authors of the document are a legislative branch.
“I represent another branch, this question is more addressed to Congress, but on behalf of the United States I can tell you that we continue and seek opportunities for cooperation with Georgia and have many initiatives because we believe in Georgia's future and its success,” she stated, adding that being on the administrative dividing line here is a demonstration that the US supports Georgia's territorial integrity and sovereignty.
The diplomat spoke in general about the relations between the 2 countries. "The strategic partnership we have between Georgia and the United States is extremely important for both countries. We have invested heavily in building partnerships with each other in many areas,” she said, emphasising that collaboration around Covid-19 serves as a good example of this.
Ambassador praised Georgian government’s efforts to manage the crisis, expressing pride for cooperation with Georgia through help of the Red Cross and other agencies.
Note that the aforementioned document is signed by 13 republican members of the US House of Representatives, including Johnson, Wilson, Whitman, Wagner, Mooney, Bacon, Bergman, Danny, Higgins, Norman, Cranshaw, Steele, and Waltz.
In the part of the document that addresses the need for continuing sanctions against Russia, Republican lawmakers point out that the sanctions have not sufficiently affected Putin's foreign policy, and that his friends are violating the sovereignty of the former Soviet republics. According to the document, the congress should mandate sanctions on Russian propaganda chiefs and those undermining U.S. partners from the former Soviet Union and direct the Department of State to produce a report on Kremlin-connected oligarchs who finance Russian military aggression.
In this context, it is said that Bidzina Ivanishvili, the richest man in Georgia, is a close ally of Putin and is involved in destabilizing Georgia in favor of Russia.
The letter was assessed by the members of the ruling Georgian Dream party, chairman of which is Ivanishvili.
Irakli Kobakhidze, one of the leaders of the parliamentary majority and former chairman of the parliament, believes that the report of 13 congressmen is the result of the payment made by the United National Movement to specific lobbyists, the money that was allocated at the expense of corruption.
According to Kobakhidze, the phrases in the ‘low level’ document are “the merit of the money that the National Movement gained at the expense of the people, at the expense of corruption and then paid to specific lobbyists.”
He states that "a few months ago there was a scandalous information that the vice-president of the IRI board had received money from the United National Movement and, naturally, such funds are yielding results."
However, Irakli Kobaidze believes that such statements are less important than the statements of state institutions, which testify to the high degree of cooperation between the countries, and other documents will not diminish this attitude.
According to Giorgi Volski, First Deputy Speaker of the Parliament, the Georgian Dream government is not only pro-Western, but also has ‘the highest quality cooperation with the United States’. Volski said that he can “cite examples of support for Russia when the National Movement and its current subdivisions helped to strengthen Russia's position in the Caucasus, and the opposite is not the case, neither on the surface nor in the depths. Therefore, I still think that that one sentence is the result of a well-educated, aggressive lobbying activity.”
