Grigory Karasin, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Council of the Russian Federation, stated that Moscow is interested in resuming mutually beneficial cooperation with Georgia.
In an interview with the Russian state news agency TASS, Karasin commented on the appointment of Giorgi Kvirikashvili as the new special representative of the prime minister of Georgia for relations with Russia and said that the “positive results achieved over the last 11 years” will continue to be in demand.
“I am convinced that these efforts will continue to be needed in the future. Russia is interested in a pragmatic dialogue and returning to full-scale, mutually beneficial cooperation with Georgian partners,” Karasin said.
Karasin recalled that in 2012, the Russian leadership unhesitatingly supported the course for normalization of bilateral relations proposed by the Georgian authorities, and an informal dialogue mechanism was established “for depoliticized discussion of various aspects of interaction with a focus on trade-economic ties, transportation communication, and humanitarian contacts.”
“There have been 26 meetings, mostly in person (during the pandemic times — via video conference), with continuous contact maintained in a remote format,” Karasin said.
According to him, these decisions significantly simplified contacts between the people of the two countries:
“They created additional opportunities for cultural exchanges, contacts through scientific and educational institutions, youth organizations. They contributed to strengthening economic ties and intensifying interaction between business communities. They stimulated further development of tourism. In 2023, more than 1.4 million of our compatriots visited Georgia.”
