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RIA Novosti
The next meeting of the special representative of the Prime Minister of Georgia for relations with Russia Zurab Abashidze and state Secretary, Deputy Minister of foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Grigory Karasin held in Prague the first week of July. About it the correspondent of TASS reported Friday in Tbilisi Abashidze.
“With Mr. Karasin agreed that the next meeting will take place in Prague in early July,” he said. “Originally this meeting in Prague is expected at the end of June, by mutual agreement, a meeting will be held in the first week of July of the current year”, – said the special representative.
According to Abashidze, at the upcoming Prague meeting “will be considered accumulated over the past months, specific practical issues of cooperation between the two countries in the spheres of trade, economy, transport, culture, humanitarian issues and current issues.” At the talks in Prague, as at previous such meetings in this format, will also be present representatives of the Ministry of foreign Affairs, ministries of economy and transport ministries of Georgia and Russia.
September 2, 2008, Georgia announced the severance of diplomatic relations with Moscow “in connection with Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region”. At the same time, the Georgian foreign Ministry said that “will maintain consular relations with the Russian Federation”. Since March 2009 in Tbilisi at the Embassy of Switzerland, the working section of interests of the Russian Federation, which has Russia’s diplomatic and administrative-technical personnel, and in Moscow at the Embassy of Switzerland in Russia the working section of interests of Georgia, where the Georgian diplomatic staff.
In November 2012, the then Prime Minister of Georgia Bidzina Ivanishvili has introduced the post of special representative of the Prime Minister on relations with Russia and appointed him ex-Ambassador of Georgia in Russia (2001-2003), Zurab Abashidze. 14 Dec 2012 in the suburbs of Geneva held his first meeting with Grigory Karasin, 2013, meetings (3-4 times per year) take place in Prague, the last one was held on 7 February 2017. Tbilisi and Moscow have repeatedly stated that the meetings in the format of “Abashidze-Karasin” “yielded some positive results in terms of recovery and development of cooperation in the spheres of trade, economy, transport, culture and humanitarian issues”. Recently, Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili said that Georgia “will continue to seek ways to further the normalization of relations with Russia, but it will not happen to the detriment of the territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognized borders”.