Majority condemns reports over US providing Syria with Georgian arms
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Wednesday, June 28
The leader of Georgia’s parliamentary Georgian Dream majority, Archil Talakvadze, stresses that reports claiming that the United States provides Syria with arms via Georgia represents “a part of the envious propaganda towards Georgia” and has “nothing to do with the truth”.
Talakvadze has responded to information released by Rustavi 2 over a deal between Georgia and the US, and declared “such an agreement does not exist at all”.
“The United States is Georgia’s strategic partner. The American people and their government have greatly contributed to our country’s development, including strengthening the armed forces and helping us with our aspiration towards modern NATO standards. It’s regrettable that a channel which describes itself as pro-Western is involved in such falsehoods,” Talakvadze stated.
Rustavi 2 has announced that they had obtained the document that confirms that Georgia provides armament for war in Syria.
The channel stressed that the Pentagon’s official document confirmed that the US addressed Georgia for arms to be used in Syria and the Army Department of Georgia’s Defence Ministry signed a contract with a mediator company for this purpose.
According to the document, the contract between the US Army Department and a private company was signed on September 22 2016. The procurement had to be completed by March 23 2017.
Defense Minister, Levan Izoria also denied the existence of this document.
He stressed that Delta, a scientific technical center subordinated to his Ministry, is now only negotiating with the US government to supply certain types of military equipment.
One of the editors of the international network of journalists, Dave Bloss, says that the Pentagon document says that the purchase of weapons from Georgia was intended for Syria.
He says that the Pentagon buys Soviet armaments for use by Syrian opposition forces.
