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Russian, Georgian diplomats to meet in late February

Earlier, Russian and Georgian diplomats agreed on the meeting in a phone conversation

MOSCOW, January 28. /TASS/. The next meeting between Georgian Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Relations with Russia Zurab Abashidze and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin is scheduled for late February, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

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Earlier on Monday, the two diplomats agreed on the meeting in a phone conversation. "They discussed certain current issues of bilateral relations and agreed on the agenda for the next meeting scheduled for late February as part of an informal dialogue on the ways to normalize Russian-Georgian ties."

Earlier reports said the meeting would be held in late January.

Tbilisi severed diplomatic relations with Moscow in 2008 after Russia had recognized Abkhazia’s and South Ossetia’s independence. The Georgian Foreign Ministry said back then it would maintain consular relations with Russia. In November 2012, Georgia’s then Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili established an office of prime minister’s special envoy for relations with Russia and appointed diplomat Zurab Abarshidze, Georgia’s former ambassador to Russia in 2000-2004, to that post. On December 14, 2012, Abashidze’s first meeting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin took place in a Geneva suburb. It resumed direct dialogue between the two countries’ officials suspended after the 2008 developments. Further meetings were held in Prague, with the latest one taking place in October 2018.

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