Toomas Hendrik Ilves: If you want to be the part of the West then you behave like you’re part of the West, you don’t throw the opposition in jail

If you want to be the part of the West then you behave like you’re part of the West, you don’t throw the opposition in jail, - stated the former President of Estonia Toomas Hendrik Ilves in his exclusive interview with InterPressNews.

According to Ilves, if Georgia does not share the values ​​of the EU, it is not necessary to raise EU flags everywhere.

"If you want to be the part of the West then you behave like you’re part of the West, you don’t throw the opposition in jail. It’s pretty basic, I mean that’s about as basic as you can get, as in terms of what defines the West commitment to liberal democratic values, which include free and fair elections, respect for rule of law and human rights. And so, I don’t know, why isn’t Russia part of the West? Because they don’t have free and fair elections, they don’t have rule of law and they don’t have respect for human rights. Russia isn’t saying: “Oh, we want to be the part of the West”, in fact, they reject those things – they reject free and fair elections, human rights, and respect for rule of law. So I mean if you want to be part of the West, from which if you share those values you have a claim to join the EU and to join NATO – good! If you don’t, well, then don’t bother! You know, you don’t need to put up the EU flags all over the place if you really don’t share the values of the European Union", - stated Ilves.

As Ilves stated, the opposition leaders should not be imprisoned.

"You do not put opposition leaders in jail - that is what Yanukovich did, and so you do not do that, that is what happened in Ukraine. So, you don’t really want to do those kind of things", - stressed the former Estonian President.