Mikheil Saakashvili’s new appointment will not cause a rift between Ukraine and Georgia

Appointment of former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili as an advisor to President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko caused a mixed reaction in Tbilisi. Even though current head of the Georgian state Giorgi Margvelashvili said that he “respected the choice made by Ukraine’s government,” Ambassador of Ukraine to Georgia Vasyl Tsybenko was still invited to the Georgian MFA. Media used the term “summoned,” but Tsybenko told The Day that “ambassadors from friendly, brotherly nations are invited, not summoned.”

“We talked about the development of Ukrainian-Georgian cooperation and intended actions of the parties to allow this cooperation to develop successfully and rapidly,” Tsybenko said revealing the meeting’s details. Of course, it focused on Saakashvili’s appointment as a supernumerary adviser to Poroshenko as well.

“I did emphasize that Ukraine was a sovereign and independent state, which had the right to take those decisions as it deemed fit. After all, this appointment is an internal affair of our country.

“Secondly, I noted that the president was guided by Ukraine’s national interests in his decisions, and took into account the extensive experience of the former Georgian president in carrying out major reforms, modernizing the army, attracting investment and donor assistance.

“Thirdly, the president believes that this decision is not directed against either Georgia or the Georgian people and will not interfere with the further development of Ukrainian-Georgian relations,” the Ukrainian diplomat told The Day. He added that since there was no sentence pronounced in the cases against Saakashvili, every person, including Saakashvili himself, was “entitled to the presumption of innocence.” According to Tsybenko, Georgia’s reaction was “calm.”

When asked to comment on former prime minister of Georgia Bidzina Ivanishvili’s statement that Ukraine should respond to allegations made by Georgian authorities against Saakashvili, the ambassador replied: “Many express their opinions based on their perceptions. We should not respond to these personal opinions, at least officially.”

Let us recall that Georgia put Saakashvili on the wanted list and charged him with several crimes. Saakashvili himself denies all the charges and calls it all a case of political persecution.

Georgian political analyst Nika Chitadze believes that inviting the Ukrainian ambassador to the MFA of Georgia was an “adverse event.” “Unfortunately, the current government of Georgia prefers advancing personal political ambitions to furthering common interests of Georgia and Ukraine in this case,” the expert maintained. He said such an approach “was definitely inauspicious for the normal development of relations between Georgia and our brotherly nation of Ukraine.”