Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has called the Baltic states’ decision to expand sanctions against his country “unserious”.
“What the governments of certain countries are doing is absolutely unserious. However, we must remain in a one-sided friendship mode, given the special relationship we, Georgians, have with the Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian people,” Kobakhidze was quoted as saying by the Georgian news agency Interpressnews.
According to the Georgian prime minister, the governments of the Baltic countries are influenced by the “global war party”. This is the conspiracy theory spread by the ruling Georgian Dream party, which claims that a clandestine international organisation exerts influence on Western politics and aims to involve Georgia in the war in Ukraine.
“We really have to distinguish between the people and their governments. These governments are elected by the people, but once again, we must state that they are directly influenced by the global war party. They are not sovereign, and this is the current state of these countries,” Kobakhidze said.
On Monday, Lithuania added 74 more Georgian officials to its national blacklist.
Seven judges from Georgia’s Constitutional Court, along with a long list of judges, prosecutors, and police officers from the South Caucasus country, have been sanctioned for “serious and systemic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as repression against the people of Georgia”.
Lithuania blacklisted Georgian Prime Minister Kobakhidze last December, after previously sanctioning Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder of Georgian Dream.
The Foreign Ministry told BNS that a total of 102 Georgians are now subject to Lithuanian sanctions.
Protests erupted in Georgia last October after Georgian Dream declared victory in parliamentary elections and intensified at the end of November when the ruling party announced the suspension of the country’s EU accession process.
Further reading
Newsletter
Every Friday morning.
