Gakharia can make a choice: does he choose the Constitution of Georgia or his personal plans abroad? – July 2 is ahead, and I hope he will appear [at the commission meeting],” said Speaker of the Georgian Parliament Shalva Papuashvili in an interview with journalists.

According to him, “the Parliamentary Temporary Investigative Commission has given Giorgi Gakharia yet another opportunity to come and fulfill his duty as a citizen.”

Papuashvili emphasized that appearing before the commission is mandatory, and it is important that Gakharia answer the questions.

“We see that Giorgi Gakharia is avoiding appearing before the investigative commission, using as an excuse the fact that he left the country after receiving the summons. In recent days, we have been hearing from the public what really happened in the Chorchana case. What Gakharia and his team were trying to convince us of — that through their actions they managed to keep the territory under Georgia’s effective control — turned out to be the opposite. In reality, over one million square meters of land have fallen out of the effective control of the central Georgian government as a result of Gakharia’s actions at the time.

At the previous commission session, he stated that his idea or initiative to set up a checkpoint in the Chorchana forest without coordinating with the EU Monitoring Mission was opposed by the State Security Service and other relevant agencies. Nevertheless, without informing the EU mission, or other security agencies, including the Prime Minister, he made a unilateral decision. He installed the outpost, which was followed by several days of requests and discussions urging its removal. After the checkpoint was not removed, we witnessed the opening of five additional posts on the territory that was under the effective control of the Georgian government at the time,” Papuashvili said.

For reference, the Parliament’s Temporary Investigative Commission has given Giorgi Gakharia, leader of the “Gakharia – For Georgia” party, until July 2 to appear before the commission. In response, Gakharia’s party has stated that the former Interior Minister is willing to answer all questions related to the village of Chorchana on July 2 in a remote format.