English

Election victors shrug off Lukashenka’s remarks about Georgia’s return to CIS

The spokesperson for the opposition bloc that won Georgia’s parliamentary elections earlier this week has dismissed as absurd Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s remarks about the ex-Soviet country’s possible return to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

“Georgia’s European integration remains our main, unchanging and one of the most important goals at present, the Belarusian president’s statement is unserious and absurd,” Georgian Dream spokesperson Maya Pandzhikidze said in an interview with the Russian news agency RIA Novosti on October 4.

When asked whether the matter was discussed by the bloc’s members, Ms. Pandzhikidze said that it was “not worth attention and comments.”

Alyaksandr Lukashenka said Thursday that he would initiate Georgia’s return to the CIS.

“I think it is most likely that next year’s CIS summit will take place in Minsk,” the Belarusian leader said in an interview with the Commonwealth’s Mir Television and Radio Company. “It will be my function: if Minsk hosts the summit, I’ll initiate Georgia’s return to the Commonwealth of Independent States in every possible way.”

“That would not be burdensome for Georgian politicians," Mr. Lukashenka said. "I’m convinced that even if Saakashvili’s party had won [the Monday parliamentary elections], Mikheil Saakashvili would become a member of the CIS next year. Belarus will work in this direction. We shouldn’t lose Georgia.”

Georgia was a member of the CIS, a loose alliance of post-Soviet countries, between 1994 and 2009. It withdrew after the 2008 South Ossetia War with Russia. President Saakashvili declared Georgia's secession from the CIS immediately after the war. The parliament backed the initiative and the Georgian foreign ministry sent a secession note to the CIS Executive Committee on August 18, 2008. Under the CIS Charter, the secession process ended 12 months later, on August 18, 2009. //BelaPAN