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Saakashvili amused by activity around his resignation as Odessa governor

According to Mikheil Saakashvili, Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko had to persuade him into remaining in the post of regional governor half a year ago

Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko and Mikheil Saakashvili (archive) Nikolai Lazarenko/Ukrainian presidential press service/TASS

Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko and Mikheil Saakashvili (archive)

© Nikolai Lazarenko/Ukrainian presidential press service/TASS

KIEV, November 8. /TASS/. Mikheil Saakashvili, who on Monday announced his resignation as the governor of Ukraine’s Odessa region, ridiculed on Tuesday the way the presidential administration and the Ukrainian government were interacting in organizing his resignation.

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"It is a bit funny to watch how the presidential administration and the Cabinet of Ministers are shifting to each other responsibility for my resignation - one more proof of a total mess in the country," Saakashvili wrote on his Facebook page.

According to him, Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko had to persuade him into remaining in the post of regional governor half a year ago. "The president knows perfectly well that I wanted to resign already six months ago, but he persuaded me to stay pledging reforms," he said.

"Only this time I was not inclined any longer to believe pledges, and the Georgian elections have nothing to do with this," he said. Saakashvili explained that he could not participate in the parliamentary campaign in Georgia after becoming citizen of Ukraine.

He expressed gratitude to Pyotr Poroshenko, with whom they were at university together, for granting him the Ukrainian citizenship.

"So, everybody will have to accustom themselves to the fact that I am a Ukrainian politician and will be winning victories or suffering defeats not in Georgia but in Ukraine," he summed up.

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