TBILISI, November 21. /ITAR-TASS/. Georgian President Georgy Margelashvili signed on Wednesday a decree to endorse Irakli Garibashvili as Georgian Prime Minister.

Addressing a parliamentary session on Wednesday, the prime minister said the Cabinet would “try to stage-by-stage overcome the crisis existing in relations with Russia”.

“The format of direct Georgian-Russian dialogue (between Georgian prime minister’s special representative for relations with Russia Zurab Abashidze and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin) would be preserved and this will help facilitate further development of trade, economic, transport and humanitarian relations between the two countries and gradually resolve existing problems taking to account the interests of Georgia,” Garibashvili said.

He said “the government will also continue constructive participation in the Geneva talks in order to settle the conflict between Russia and Georgia”.

Bid to join NATO as priority

“A bid to join the European Union and Euro-Atlantic integration are priorities for a new government of Georgia,” the prime minister said. He also said the Cabinet “will direct major efforts towards deepening a dialogue with the US at the summit level in the sphere of trade and investment, also initiating the signing of an agreement on free trade between the two countries”.

He vowed that cooperation between Georgia and the United States, as its main ally, would continue in accordance with the Charter on Strategic Partnership between the two countries.

President Georgy Margelashvili congratulated the prime minister and the ministers “on big confidence that the parliament expressed to the Cabinet of Ministers”.

Biography

Garibashvili was born in Tbilisi on June 28, 1982. In his school years he was Georgia’s kickboxing champion. He graduated from Tbilisi State University (faculty of international relations), and then studied at Sorbonne University. From 2004 to 2012 he worked at a company owned by billionaire-turned-politician Bidzina Ivanishvili. When Ivanishvili came into politics (October 5, 2011), Garibashvili became his ally and one of the leaders of his Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party, which is part of the Georgian Dream coalition winning in the parliamentary election in October 2012.

On October 25, 2012 he was approved by the parliament as Interior Minister in the government of Ivanishvili. Garibashvili speaks Russian, French and English. He is married with two children.