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Georgia’s opposition threatens to impeach president over refusal to host US military base

Earlier Salome Zourabichvili said that the construction of US military base in Georgia may be viewed as a provocation

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili Irakli Gedenidze/Pool Photo via AP

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili

© Irakli Gedenidze/Pool Photo via AP

TBILISI, May 1. /TASS/. Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, who has said that the construction of a US military base in the country is inadvisable, could face an impeachment, Georgian MP from the opposition’s party, the United National Movement, Tinatin Bokuchava said.

"I’m becoming convinced day by day that this woman [Zourabichvili] will surely end up with an impeachment. However, it’s important now that before the impeachment she does not cause irreparable damage to the country by making such statements [on the US military base]," Bokuchava told reporters.

Secretary-General of the ruling party, Georgian Dream - Democratic Georgia, and Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze believes that Georgian-US ties are friendly and at this stage the construction of a military base is not being considered.

"America has always been, is and will be our strategic partner and friend. It has been always standing next to our country since it gained independence. All decisions will be made after talks. At this stage of negotiations nothing has been said about this particular issue," Kaladze told the Georgian Public Broadcasting’s First Channel.

Earlier, Zourabichvili told VOA's Georgian Service in an interview in Tbilisi published on Wednesday that the construction of US military base in Georgia is inadvisable and may be viewed as a provocation. According to Zourabichvili, a former French diplomat who became Georgia’s first woman president in December 2018, Georgia needs to deepen ties with Washington, but should not take any steps, which would provoke other countries.

Georgia and the United States signed the Charter on Strategic Partnership in 2009. Since 1994, Tbilisi has been boosting its cooperation with NATO and has stated many times about its desire to join the alliance. In August 2015, the Georgia-NATO Joint Training and Evaluation Center (JTEC) was opened at a military base in Krtsanisi near Tbilisi.

In 2016, the Defense Institution Building School was inaugurated in Tbilisi, and in May 2018 a combat training center was opened in Vaziani, near the Georgian capital, with the US assistance. This center, similar to the German base Hohenfels, is designed to train Georgian military. This April, Georgian Defense Minister Levan Izoria put forward a proposal to provide the US and NATO countries with Georgia’s military infrastructure for holding drills.

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