Georgian, Russian reps to meet in Prague in July

By Kamila Aliyeva

Zurab Abashidze, Special Representative of the Georgian Prime Minister for Relations with Russia, and Grigory Karasin, Russian Deputy Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, will hold next meeting in Prague in the first decade of July.

This was stated by Abashidze in Tbilisi on June 16, TASS reported.

“An agreement has been reached with Mr. Karasin that the next meeting will be held in Prague in the first ten days of July,” he said adding that “initially, this meeting was proposed to be held in Prague in late June.”

Concrete practical issues of cooperation between the two countries in the spheres of trade, economy, transport, culture, humanitarian problems and issues accumulated over the past months will be considered at the upcoming meeting, according to Abashidze.

Representatives of the Foreign Ministries, Georgian and Russian Ministries of Economy and Transport Departments will also attend the talks as it was at previous meetings of this format.

Tbilisi broke diplomatic relations with Moscow in 2008.  The relations between Georgia and Russia have pushed all limits when Georgian troops launched military operations to retake the breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions on August 8, 2008. Russian armed forces entered the regions to stop the military attacks by Georgian troops. After four days of tense fighting, Georgian forces were expelled from South Ossetia and Abkhazia. 

Both sides agreed to a ceasefire on August 12. Tbilisi immediately cut all diplomatic ties with Russia just a while after the bloody skirmish.

Abashidze’s first meeting with Karasin took place in December 2012. Later, the senior diplomats held meetings in the Czech capital of Prague between 2013 and 2016, with the latest of them on October 19, focusing on cooperation in trade, economy, transport, culture, humanitarian and current issues.

In late 2016, the parties confirmed that they intend to continue to pursue the normalization of relations.