Kobakhidze Demands UK Apology Over BBC Chemical Agent Report and Criticizes British Ambassador
By Liza Mchedlidze
Thursday, December 11, 2025
Georgian Dream Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze sharply criticized the United Kingdom on December 9, insisting that London should apologize for what he called a "falsehood" in a BBC investigation that suggested Georgian authorities might have used a military-grade chemical compound during the December 2024 protests. He also delivered an unusually personal rebuke of British Ambassador Gareth Ward, accusing him of representing a country that had been stripped of "dignity" and "sovereignty."
Speaking to reporters, Kobakhidze said, "I think that Great Britain must first apologize for the falsehood of the public broadcaster. The BBC is a public broadcaster, directly funded from public sources. Accordingly, the first thing Great Britain owes is an apology for the false report it aired." He accused the broadcaster of staging an "artificial" controversy. On December 6, Georgia's State Security Service stated that only a standard tear gas agent had been used during the December 4 to 5 demonstrations and denied that the World War I era substance named in the BBC report had ever been acquired or deployed.
The prime minister confirmed that the ruling party intends to pursue formal complaints against the BBC. "We intend to apply to Ofcom and then to the courts, if needed. We will use all legal means so that the BBC will be forced to apologize for the lie it spread," he said.
In response, the British Embassy told RFE/RL's Georgian Service that the BBC operates independently of the British government, both editorially and institutionally, and that any decision regarding an apology would be made by the broadcaster itself.
Kobakhidze also reacted to recent comments by Ambassador Ward, who spoke at Caucasus University about strains in the bilateral relationship. The embassy said Ward had emphasized that "the UK political relationship with Georgia remains damaged because of anti democratic pressure on the opposition and civil society." Kobakhidze rejected that assessment. "This is an attack on the Georgian people. It is an attack on Georgia's government, the government elected by the Georgian people," he said, calling the ambassador's words "a very tragic development."
To explain his criticism, Kobakhidze referenced former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, asserting that she had spoken publicly about what he called the influence of the "Deep State" over the British government. "It is impossible to explain this otherwise," he said. "A sovereign, dignified British bureaucracy would not have acted the way the British ambassador to Georgia acts."
Kobakhidze said that the ambassador's comments "can be directly interpreted as statements of a dignity stripped and sovereignty deprived state" and argued that Ward should instead address what he described as "the falsehood-filled report aired by the British public broadcaster."
