MOSCOW, June 21. /TASS/. The ruckus over the participation of a Russian lawmaker in a session of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy looks disturbing for Georgia and the mass riots that ensued are the result of the Georgian authorities’ failure, Head of the International Affairs Committee in the upper house of Russia’s parliament Konstantin Kosachev said on Friday.
“This is a fiasco by the Georgian authorities. It is understandable that the figure [of lawmaker Sergei] Gavrilov was used by the opposition for its attack on the authorities, and here, in this case, Russia was just a suitable pretext. So it is clear that the opposition wants to fight Russia rather than to find some common ground as the incumbent authorities are trying to do now, despite the absence of diplomatic relations,” the senior Russian senator said.
“It is understandable that any outcome of the confrontation should be intra-Georgian. However, only one outcome – in favor of confirming Georgia’s commitment to international law and its obligations – will help Georgia’s save its international face,” Kosachev wrote on his Facebook on Friday.
Russians continue to adore Georgia, “despite all the excesses of the radicals of the 2008 and 2019 mold,” the senior Russian senator noted.
Kosachev blasted the incident with the Russian lawmaker in Georgia, calling it very disturbing. “It looks very disturbing, not for Russia as they are trying to picture this in Tbilisi and in the capitals of other countries supervising Georgia. It looks disturbing for Georgia itself,” the senior Russian senator said.
After a politician comes to head an international organization, he stops representing his country in this capacity, the senior Russian senator stressed.
“[Antonio] Guterres is not Portuguese in his position of the UN Secretary General while [Thorbjorn] Jagland is not Norwegian in his position of the Council of Europe Secretary General, honor and praise to them and the like. Incidentally, Georgian [Georgiy] Tsereteli who is now heading the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] Parliamentary Assembly would have immediately lost this post, if he had started to act in the interests of his country rather than in the interests of the entire assembly and all its 57 national parliaments,” Kosachev pointed out.
“The same is true for my colleague Sergei Gavrilov. In his rather responsible and honorable position as chairman of the International Assembly on Orthodoxy, he is a Russian by no more than a twenty-fifth part (by the number of the organization’s members). And he came to Tbilisi yesterday precisely in this capacity to represent the assembly,” the Russian senator noted, adding that Gavrilov was doing this impeccably.
“There is no hint anywhere that he tried to act on behalf of his country and this is absolutely right in this case,” Kosachev stated.
As the senior Russian legislator believes, the Georgian authorities had only two scenarios to act in the wake of the arrival of the Russian lawmaker in Georgia. They should have either denied Gavrilov entry in advance, contrary to all norms and rules, saying he is a Russian and Georgia has no diplomatic relations with Russia, which would have resulted in an international scandal. Or they should have agreed to his visit and done everything for ensuring the normal work of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy and its chairman on Georgian soil.
“There is no third alternative. Yesterday, the Georgian authorities showed weakness and went the third way, onto which they were pushed by the radical opposition. Gavrilov was not protected by the authorities of the country hosting the session of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy and the session did not take place,” the lawmaker said.
Unrest in Georgia
Several thousand demonstrators converged near the national parliament building in downtown Tbilisi on Thursday, demanding the resignation of the country’s interior chief and the parliament’s chairman. The protesters then rushed to storm the building, but they were met by police using tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons to disperse the crowd. According to Georgian media reports, several dozen people were detained.
In addition the country’s Health Ministry reported that 52 people, including 38 police officers, had been injured in the violent confrontation.
The mass protests were prompted by the participation of Russian lawmaker Sergei Gavrilov and other delegates from Russia at the 26th session of the General Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy in Tbilisi, which resulted in a scandal. On Thursday morning, Gavrilov as the president of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy opened its session in the building of the Georgian parliament.
The opposition Georgian legislators were outraged that Gavrilov addressed the delegates while sitting in the chair of the parliament’s speaker. In a sign of protest, the opposition’s representatives picketed the podium and the chair of the parliament’s speaker and did not allow the session to continue its work.
Later, a decision was made to end the event and for the Russian delegation to leave. Representatives of the ruling ‘Georgian Dream - Democratic Georgia’ party said they did not know that Gavrilov would open the session and believed that the protocol had been breached.