You're reading: Georgia recalls its ambassador to Ukraine over Saakashvili’s appointment

Georgia has recalled its ambassador to Ukraine on May 8, just a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appointed former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to a government post.

The south Caucasus country’s ruling Georgian Dream party, led by oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, is the political rival of Saakashvili’s United National Movement. Saakashvili served as Georgia’s president in 2004-2013. After leaving office, he was convicted in two criminal cases in the country in absentia. Saakashvili says the convictions were motivated by the current government’s political vendetta against him.

On May 7, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appointed Saakashvili as the head of the Executive Reform Committee, a presidential advisory body.

“The appointment of a person convicted and wanted in Georgia raises issues,” Georgian Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani said on May 8. “This is why we decided to recall Teimuraz Sharashenidze, our extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador to Ukraine, to Tbilisi for consultations.”

However, Zaklaliani added that Georgia is “not considering severing diplomatic relations (with Ukraine) or re-evaluating the strategic partnership between the countries.”

Zelensky responded that Georgia and Ukraine have “splendid relations” and bilateral ties will outlast any of the countries’ governments.

“I think this is a mistake by Georgia,” he said. “I believe that, after the consultation, all sides will understand that, in each country, human resource policy is a matter for that specific country and the citizens who live there. This is our decision and our domestic policy. Saakashvili is a citizen of Ukraine with a Ukrainian passport.”

Saakashvili implemented major market and law enforcement reforms in Georgia during his presidency. He left Georgia in 2013.

In 2018, a Georgian court sentenced him to six years in prison in absentia on charges of ordering the beating of opposition lawmaker Valery Gelashvili. The evidence against Saakashvili was based on testimony by two of his political foes.

That same year, a Tbilisi court also sentenced Saakashvili in absentia to three years in prison on abuse of power charges for pardoning four police officers convicted of murder. Saakashvili dismissed the accusations as absurd, arguing that his right to pardon them was not constitutionally limited.

Interpol and Western governments have not recognized the verdicts.

In 2015-2016, Saakashvili served as governor of Odesa Oblast under Zelensky’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko. However, he fell out with Poroshenko and was subsequently stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship, prosecuted and deported from Ukraine in what he believes to be a political repression.

Saakashvili returned to Ukraine in 2019, when Zelensky restored his Ukrainian citizenship.