According to the Chair of the Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee, this comment was made in response to a statement by Maria Zakharova, spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

He added that the Georgian government’s priority is “the reunification of our territories, ensuring peace in the country, and creating guarantees for economic progress.”

“Even if we hypothetically assume that ‘Georgian Dream’ had any connection with the leadership of the occupying country, the first thing we would tell them would be: ‘Do not praise us, do not make positive statements—on the contrary, make as aggressive statements as possible toward Georgia and speak as harshly as possible about Georgian Dream,’ because in that case, paradoxically, public support for Georgian Dream would increase. But we see the exact opposite.

All this once again highlights that there are forces attempting to interfere in our country’s internal affairs. Our message to everyone is the same: what matters most to us is what the Georgian people want and what serves our national interest. Our main interest is the reunification of our territories, ensuring peace in the country, and creating guarantees for economic development. We speak with any country on equal terms and only based on the interests of our society and the legitimacy we have.

Everyone knows very well that there are no diplomatic relations. We have repeatedly stated that we will engage with the occupying country only on issues related to our territorial integrity and the extension of our country’s full jurisdiction over the unrecognized de facto territories,” Gorduladze said.

For context, Maria Zakharova had stated that, apparently, the Georgian side is also interested in constructive relations with Russia:

“It seems that the Georgian side is also interested in constructive relations with Russia. Our relations with Georgia have a natural character and are not artificially imposed—we do not use Western practices,” Zakharova said.