As the events reveal, the Statement of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, on the abolition of entry visas to Georgia for the citizens of the Russian Federation made in his annual address to Parliament on February 27, 2012 is another propaganda ploy aimed not only at increasing the flow of Russian citizens in Georgia, but rather at the suggestion of an international myth of the "constructiveness" and "peacefulness" of foreign policy actions of the author of this idea.
One can easily come to such a conclusion witnessing the vicious reaction of the Georgian side on the counter proposal by the Russian authorities on the restoration of diplomatic relations and finding civilized ways to dialogue normalization.
In its propaganda Georgia regularly resorts to the use of different conflict situations treating them in its own interests and purposes. The theses of official Georgia are widely supported in the West and this Statement of Georgian President is nothing else but an action oriented to the western audience showing that Georgia unilaterally tries to launch bridges with the Russian Federation for the welfare of Russian citizens.
Georgian politicians and parliamentarians do not expect constructive proposals from the Russian side and being not adjusted to the real positive in the relations they got to contempt and positioning of a fortiori unacceptable conditions – annulment of the Republic of South Ossetia and the Republic of Abkhazia recognition and closing of the Russian Embassies in their capitals. Choosing the mildest expressions, it can be qualified as an illegal interference in bilateral relations of the third countries.
If the authorities of Georgia had had a trifle interest in peacefulness, mending of fences with neighbors and increasing of the flow of citizens coming to Georgia, they would have repealed an act on ‘Occupied territories’ according to which entrance of the foreign citizens to Georgia without passport control from the territories of independent Abkhazia and South Ossetia is considered illegal and punished with a fine and deprivation of liberty for terms from 3 up to 5 years.
Even after the public statement of Georgia Minister of Foreign Affairs Vashadze at PACE winter session January 25, 2012 where he cynically announced that they never had objections to which side - from the north or south - people enter South Ossetia and Abkhazia, there were some cases of arrest and detention of third country nationals for the fact that they had driven into Abkhazia from the north and there are stamps about it in their passports. Thus, the "Law on Occupied Territories" in Georgia clearly acts and foreign nationals are systematically victims of tyranny and really risk of being imprisoned only for having once been in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The fact that Georgian authorities have put completely unacceptable conditions in response to Russian proposals for the restoration of diplomatic relations and assurance of reliable legal environment which would guarantee safety of Russian nationals visiting Georgia shows that the Georgian leadership is not really interested in normalizing relations with neighboring states.
Tskhinval, 16 March 2012