Georgian Interior Minister Alexander Chikaidze said there are some forces in Georgia that are trying to destabilize the situation in the country to achieve their political goals, using criminal elements and Ukrainian Euromaidan activists.
“We have information that political opponents of this administration
have brought Euromaidan activists from Ukraine, who are conducting
training,” Chikaidze said in an interview with the Georgian weekly
Primetime on Monday.
“Our political opponents are using several non-governmental
organizations as cover to do everything to cause people to take to the
streets. They also plan to put tents in central Tbilisi and mobilize
300-400 people in them to provoke violence from the authorities and then
to tell the world how citizens’ rights are violated in Georgia,” the
minister said.
The minister said the Interior Ministry is doing everything to prevent destabilization in Georgia.
“We have freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, but the groups
that are now trying to destabilize the situation will be strictly
punished in accordance with the law,” Chikaidze said.
Giorgi Baramidze, a leader of the opposition United National Movement
and former interior minister of Georgia, told reporters on Monday that
“our party is not preparing any Maidan in Tbilisi.”
“No Maidan is needed for changing the current administration of
Georgia. This administration is moving in the direction of its own end
so fast that this process can no longer be stopped,” he said.
Baramidze said Georgia’s former ruling party, which is led by former
president Mikheil Saakashvili, “did not plan and is not planning any
coups.”
