TBILISI, October 2. /TASS/. The US needs to provide clarification on the issue of USAID funding trainings in Georgia that involved Serbian citizens preparing the republic's residents to overthrow the authorities of the country this year, Chairman of Georgia's ruling party Georgian Dream - Democratic Georgia Irakli Kobakhidze said.
"As it turns out, all this (the overthrow of the authorities - TASS) was financed by the US Agency for International Development, which is called USAID. However, this is not aid from the US, I think. Of course, we will need to get clarifications in this regard. Why this training, the direct goal of which was to prepare a revolution in Georgia, was funded by USAID," Kobakhidze said at the press briefing.
Speaker of the Georgian Parliament Shalva Papuashvili called the information about USAID financing revolutionary movements in the republic a black day in the history of US aid to Georgia. "This is a black day in the history of US aid to Georgia. As we see, the money of the American people is being used here to plan some revolutionary processes, to purposefully prepare people for riots and incendiary acts of violence. It is a pity that the money of the American people is being used for this," he told reporters.
The Georgian State Security Service (SSSG) announced that Serbian citizens Sinisa Sikvan, Yelena Stojsic and Slobodan Djinovic arrived in the republic on September 25 at the invitation of USAID and conducted trainings in a hotel in the capital with the participation of non-governmental organizations and civil activists who "were to play a decisive role in the preparation and execution of the overthrow of the government by violent means." Serbian nationals representing the CANVAS organization have already been interrogated by the SSSG.
On September 18, the SSSG reported that a group of individuals, including former Deputy Interior Minister Giorgi Lortkipanidze, who is currently in Ukraine, was planning to carry out a Euromaidan-like event in Georgia if the EU does not grant the country candidate status by the end of the year. For this purpose, the organizers intend to involve Georgians fighting in Ukraine, as well as Georgian youth, whose training near the Polish-Ukrainian border is carried out by the CANVAS organization, the core of which is the Resistance! organization which participated in the revolutionary movement in Serbia.