European Union membership holds no value whatsoever for Georgia without Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region, declared Chairman of the Parliament Shalva Papuashvili.
According to the speaker, the Georgian opposition is circulating narratives that ultimately amount to ceding the regions to Russia. However, they “do not stand the slightest chance of gaining traction in Georgian society.”
Papuashvili specifically commented on statements made by opposition figures Giorgi Baramidze and Nika Gvaramia. In an interview, Baramidze claimed that at the beginning of the 1990s war in Abkhazia, prisoners were not handed over to the Abkhaz side because there were none—they were executed. Following this remark, a criminal case was opened against the politician on charges of high treason and sabotage. Meanwhile, Gvaramia recently stated that Georgians and Abkhazians do not like each other and are enemies.
According to the parliament speaker, hardly anyone believes these remarks were accidental slips of the tongue. He noted that Gvaramia is merely repeating previously voiced talking points. As Shalva Papuashvili stated, this is an orchestrated campaign, and Nika Gvaramia has explicitly laid out its objectives.
“He made a completely inappropriate parallel between Abkhazia and Karabakh, claiming that just as Armenia managed to forget the trauma of Karabakh and cast it off, Abkhazia represents a similar trauma. Armenia relinquished Karabakh and thereby secured an opportunity to take its relations with Brussels to a new level; he hinted that we, too, should forget our trauma and shed this burden for the sake of closer ties with Brussels.
This is part of a campaign run under the slogan ‘Georgia in the European Union without Abkhazia and Tskhinvali.’ It is obvious that this campaign is directly orchestrated from abroad. In the exact same way, it is being suggested to Ukraine that it will have to make territorial concessions for the sake of accelerated development and a more tangible European perspective. Gvaramia hinted at the very same thing regarding Karabakh, asserting that by renouncing Karabakh, Armenia accelerated its forward momentum. The same is being hinted to Moldova regarding Transnistria. Blatant propaganda has been set in motion: ‘Georgia in the EU without Abkhazia and Tskhinvali.’
Let me reiterate so that all mouthpieces of this propaganda within the country and their foreign sponsors can hear: no EU membership holds the slightest value for Georgia without Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region. Everyone must remember this and stop testing the waters. The narrative pushed by Gvaramia, which signifies the de facto surrender of territories to Russia, is doomed to fail among the Georgian people. I urge all foreign sponsors to abandon such attempts,” Papuashvili stated.