By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
TBILISI/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Tensions remain high in Georgia’s capital, where police and protesters clashed after the country’s ruling party suspended negotiations to join the European Union until 2028
Dozens of demonstrators were detained as police used water cannons, pepper spray, and tear gas overnight to disperse crowds who took to the streets following the announcement by Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze of the ruling Georgian Dream party.
Georgian Dream claimed victory in last month’s parliamentary election, which the opposition in the South Caucasus nation dismissed as fraudulent and that European officials condemned.
The election was seen as a referendum on whether the former Soviet nation would move towards the West or stay more under Russia’s sphere of influence.
Some pro-EU protesters threw fireworks at police while shouting “Russians” and “slaves”.
Thousands had blocked streets in the capital before the altercations began.
The country’s outgoing pro-EU figurehead president, Salome Zourabichvili, accused the government of declaring “war” on its people and confronted riot police, asking “whether they served Georgia or Russia.”
TENSIONS REMAIN
However, there were no indications that tensions would ease as the Georgian Dream governing bloc accused the EU of using the prospect of accession talks to “blackmail” the country and to “organize a revolution in the country.”
As a result, it said: “We have decided not to put the issue of opening negotiations with the European Union on the agenda until the end of
2028. Also, we refuse any budgetary grant from the European Union until the end of 2028.”
The South Caucasus country of 3.7 million has the aim of EU accession written into its constitution and has long been among the most pro-Western of the Soviet Union’s successor states.
Yet that pro-Western tone changed under Kobakhidze, although Moscow denied interfering in the country’s internal affairs.
However, Russia still occupies about 20 percent of Georgia’s internationally recognized territory after it invaded the country 16 years ago.
Russia does not allow the European Union Monitoring Mission in Georgia observers to enter the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
Christians gathered in Indonesia on Thursday to pray for survivors and families of victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami 20 years ago that killed some 230,000 people and left deep scarves in the lives of those who were there.
The US-based Eastern European Mission (EEM) Bible distribution ministry recently reported that, amid the continuing devastating war against Russia’s invasion, Ukrainians have requested an increasing number of Bibles to be sent to be delivered in their language, The Christian Post (CP) reports.
A bus carrying dozens of people veered off the road, landing in a lake in Norway and killing several people, authorities say.
Hundreds of Christians in Syria took to the streets of Damascus on Tuesday to protest the destruction of a Christmas tree in the Christian-majority town of Suqaylabiyah, near Hama, Politico reports. The tree was burned down just over two weeks after the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamic insurgent group on December 8.
Five journalists of a television station linked to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a group designated as a “terrorist organization” by Israel, were killed Thursday in an Israeli air strike on their vehicle in Gaza, the network said.
An increasing number of mass graves are being discovered in Syria since the brutal rule of dictator Bashar al-Assad came to an end at the hands of the Islamic insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on December 8, TRT reports. Last week, an international war crimes prosecutor said the mass grave sites in Syria show Assad had operated the “machinery of death” against anyone he considered an enemy.
Sudanese civilians are dealing with famine in addition to the death, displacement, maiming, and trauma brought on them by the war for power between Sudan’s National Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that broke out in April 2023, Courthouse News reports.