Speaker of the Georgian Parliament said remarks Mikheil Saakashvili [by imprisoned former president] that the path to restoring control over Abkhazia does not lie through reconciliation with Abkhazians are part of a coordinated campaign aimed at pushing Georgia to surrender its territories to Russia and abandon its commitment to territorial integrity.

“This is a coordinated campaign aimed at making Georgia surrender its own territories to Russia and renounce its own territorial integrity. They are taking it from us drop by drop. Our country’s two main tasks are the well-being of our people and the reunification of our country. There is no other goal that stands above these.

Recently, we have been seeing a direct campaign directed against the territorial integrity of our country. It first started with [Giorgi] Baramidze’s statement, in which he accused Georgia and Georgian soldiers of war crimes during the confrontation in the 1990s.

Then came [Nika] Gvaramia, who called it a historical trauma from which it is necessary to free ourselves and drew parallels with Armenia, saying that, in his assessment, just as Armenia freed itself from the trauma of Karabakh and prospects opened up for it, so we too should free ourselves from this trauma.

This directly showed what vision they have regarding the integrity of the country. This is a continuation of the line that the National Movement has always had in general, including while in power…

When Saakashvili says that “the Abkhazians hate us and nothing will help this”, that “the policy of reconciliation makes no sense”; [Giga] Bokeria says that “the policy of reconciliation is futile”.

Gvaramia says that ‘this is a trauma and this trauma is blocking our development and we should get rid of it and look ahead’ - all of this shows that this is a coordinated campaign aimed at making Georgia surrender its own territories to Russia and renounce its own territorial integrity. They are taking it from us drop by drop, and they will add to this what Gvaramia is talking about with the parallels to Armenia - that in return, some prospects will open up”, - said Shalva Papuashvili.