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Tbilisi won’t hold consultations with ambassador to Ukraine over Saakashvili

Mikhail Saakashvili took part in the 2007 rally dispersal trial in Tbilisi City Court on Monday via video link from a hospital. The former president looked severely gaunt

TBILISI, July 6. /TASS/. Georgian Foreign Minister Ilya Darchiashvili has said the ministry doesn’t plan to hold consultations with the country’s Ambassador to Ukraine Georgy Zakarashvili, who was ordered to leave Kiev over the health condition of former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, according to the minister’s interview with Georgia’s Imedi television.

"The Georgian Foreign Ministry has no plans to hold any consultations with the ambassador. By the way, the ambassador has already left the territory of Ukraine and is heading to Georgia," Darchiashvili said.

Saakashvili took part in the 2007 rally dispersal trial in Tbilisi City Court on Monday via video link from a hospital. The former president looked severely gaunt. Later, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky instructed the Foreign Ministry to summon the Georgian ambassador and order him to leave the country within 48 hours for consultations about Saakashvili, who has Ukrainian citizenship. The Georgian Foreign Ministry called Kiev's move an extreme form of exacerbation of diplomatic relations, as well as interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.

Saakashvili left Georgia in 2013. Four criminal cases were opened against him in the country subsequently. In two of them he was sentenced to three and six years in absentia. In October 2021, Saakashvili secretly arrived in Georgia, but was detained. In May 2022, he was taken to the private Tbilisi clinic Vivamed as his health condition deteriorated, and he remains there to this day. The Georgian government believes that Saakashvili is feigning ill health in order to be released from detention.

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Ukraine Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili

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