MOSCOW, June 21. /TASS/. The outbreak of demonstrations by radicals in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi is aimed at muddying the country’s relations with Russia, Chairman of the Russian State Duma (the lower house of parliament) Committee for Civil Society Development and the Affairs of Public and Religious Associations Sergei Gavrilov told the Rossiya-24 TV channel on Friday.
"I think it was a deliberate provocation aimed at hindering efforts to strengthen relations between the Russian and Georgian peoples," said Gavrilov, who is also the President of the Inter-parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (IAO). "We have good cultural, economic and tourism ties that many don’t appreciate," he noted.
Gavrilov added that the situation had also tarnished Georgia’s image as a hospitable country. "Georgia invited us and provided us with written security guarantees," he pointed out, noting that "Georgians usually don’t attack the guests they invite or threaten them with murder."
The senior Russian lawmaker said that protesters also sought to discredit Orthodoxy in Georgia.
Tbilisi developments
On Thursday, several thousand protesters converged on the parliament in downtown Tbilisi, demanding the resignation of the interior minister and the parliament’s speaker, and tried to storm the building. In response, police used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons to disperse the demonstrators. According to Georgian media, dozens were detained. The country’s Health Ministry said that 52 people, including 38 police officers, suffered injuries.
The protests were sparked by an uproar over a Russian State Duma delegation’s participation in the 26th session of the Inter-parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy. On Thursday morning, IAO President Gavrilov opened the session in the Georgian parliament building. Opposition lawmakers were outraged by the fact that Gavrilov addressed the event’s participants from the parliament speaker’s seat. In protest, they did not allow the IAO session to continue.
Later, a decision was taken to wrap up the session and for the Russian delegation to leave the country. Members of the ruling ‘Georgian Dream - Democratic Georgia’ party said that they did not know that Gavrilov had been scheduled to open the event, claiming that the protocol office had made a mistake.