Georgia’s Ambassador to US invited to explain his words
By Tea Mariamidze
Thursday, July 7
The Ambassador of Georgia to the United States (US), Archil Gegeshidze, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry of Georgia to provide an explanation over his recent statements.
Several days ago, Gegeshidze said in his interview with Netgazeti that pro-Russian forces are in the ruling team but do not influence the decision-making process.
Moreover, Deputy Foreign Minister Davit Zalkaliani has not answered the question whether the ambassador may be dismissed or not.
"The ambassador has been summoned. We will have a conversation with him, and after this we will return to the issue of his continuing in his post,” said Zalkaliani.
President of Georgia Giorgi Margvelashvili also commented on the statement made by Gegeshidze.
Eka Mishveladze, the Georgian President’s Press Speaker, outlined to journalists the viewpoint of the President.
“The President believes this was an incompetent statement of an unqualified ambassador,” the Press Speaker stated.
According to the chairman of the Georgian Dream faction, Gia Volski, the statement of Gegeshidze was the expression of “political romanticism”.
Volski believes that with his statement, Gegeshidze wanted to underline democracy and pluralism in the government, but he was misunderstood.
“However, officials should have more pragmatism than political romanticism towards certain issues,” he noted.
The first critical comments against Gegeshidze were made in October after visit of Georgian President in New York and Washington. Margvelashvili accused the Head of the Georgian diplomatic mission in the USA of non-attendance of meetings and reminded him of diplomatic etiquette.
Archil Gegeshidze arrived in Georgia from the US on July 6 but he has not yet responded to the allegations.
