‘Clean Slate’: Georgia Seeks Better Ties With US, Prime Minister Says

Mikheil Kavelashvili (C), elected by lawmakers as Georgia's new president, takes the oath during his swearing-in ceremony at the parliament in Tbilisi on Dec. 29, 2024. Irakli Gedenidze/AFP via Getty Images

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has called for a reboot of U.S.–Georgia relations after months of strained ties between Washington and Tbilisi.

His comments follow months of increasingly strained relations over Georgia’s recent adoption of legislation aimed at curtailing perceived foreign influence.

“One of our main foreign policy priorities is to reboot relations with the United States, for which we will do everything possible,” Kobakhidze said on Dec. 30 in remarks cited by Georgia’s Agenda.ge news portal. “Our goal is to start relations with the United States from a clean slate, to renew the strategic partnership, and to do so with a specific roadmap.”

Kobakhidze expressed his government’s “openness and readiness” to reset relations with Washington under the administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

He went on to voice hope that the incoming Trump administration will reciprocate by taking “constructive, mutual steps.”

Trump is set to return to the White House on Jan. 20 for his second, although nonconsecutive, term as president.

As of publication time, the U.S. State Department had yet to respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment regarding Kobakhidze’s remarks.

In televised comments last week, Kobakhidze blamed the poor state of current U.S.–Georgia relations on what he called “informal influences.”

“Donald Trump has noted that he intends to fight the deep state, and the main problem in our relations was precisely these informal, oligarchic influences,” he said in remarks cited by Agenda.ge on Dec. 27.

“If the United States is deoligarchized, cleansed of informal influences, and cleansed of the deep state, our relations with the United States will go in a very good direction.”

Protests, Presidency

Tbilisi was recently rocked by weeks of street protests sparked by the government’s decision in November to suspend Georgia’s EU accession process.

Demonstrators accused the ruling Georgian Dream party of seeking to align the country with Russia at the expense of its longstanding hope of becoming an EU member.

Georgian Dream’s critics, both domestic and foreign, also accused the party of adopting authoritarian and pro-Russian policies, claims denied by Georgian officials.

Tbilisi has not had diplomatic relations with Moscow since 2008, when Russia won a brief war with Georgia over the breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions.

Fireworks are launched by protesters outside the Georgian parliament in Tbilisi on Dec. 1, 2024. Giorgi Arjevanidze/AFP via Getty Images

Georgian Dream’s opponents also dispute the results of an October parliamentary poll in which the ruling party won almost 54 percent of the vote, according to the country’s electoral commission.

Domestic opposition to Georgian Dream has been led by Salome Zourabichvili, Georgia’s fiercely pro-EU president whose term expired earlier this week.

Upon leaving Tbilisi’s presidential palace on Dec. 29, Zourabichvili challenged Georgian Dream’s legitimacy, repeating claims that the recent parliamentary poll was rigged in the ruling party’s favor.

“I am taking legitimacy with me,” the Paris-born Zourabichvili declared, before departing the presidential palace to address supporters outside the building.

On the same day, Mikheil Kavelashvili, a leading member of Georgian Dream, was sworn in as the country’s next president, a post that is largely ceremonial.

After taking the oath of office, he addressed the challenges facing Georgia, including “threats that could have devastating consequences” for the nation.

“We have overcome these challenges through the unity of the Georgian people and the state,” Kavelashvili, a longstanding critic of U.S. policy, said.

Anti-government protesters hold Georgian and European Union flags during a demonstration in central Tbilisi on Dec. 13, 2024. Photo by GIORGI ARJEVANIDZE/AFP via Getty Images

Sanctions, Russian Rebuke

Since May, when Georgia adopted its anti-foreign influence law, Washington has placed a raft of restrictions on Georgian officials for alleged “anti-democratic practices.”

Recently, Washington imposed sanctions on Bidzina Ivanishvili, a former Georgian prime minister who founded the Georgian Dream party in 2012.

In a Dec. 27 statement, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Ivanishvili of “undermining the democratic and Euro-Atlantic future of Georgia for the benefit of the Russian Federation.”

“Ivanishvili and Georgian Dream’s actions have eroded democratic institutions, enabled human rights abuses, and curbed the exercise of fundamental freedoms,” Blinken said.

Moscow has decried Western policy—especially that of Brussels and Washington—toward Georgia, a small country in the South Caucasus region.

“The U.S. and EU are trying to make Tbilisi face a false dilemma: with us or against us,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Russian state news agency TASS on Dec. 29.

“Georgia’s authorities want to shape their sovereign policy corresponding to national interests without becoming a pawn of Western countries.”

Lavrov went on to accuse Western capitals of “pushing Georgia toward destabilization, economic problems and exacerbation of relations with Russia.”

Reuters contributed to this report.