Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze expressed being upset over the “brutal crackdown” against students at U.S. universities who are protesting the war in Gaza. His remark at a time when the U.S. State Department continues to criticize the Georgia government’s legislation requiring NGOs that receive more than 20% of their funds from foreign sources to register as foreign agents. The U.S. also criticized Georgian police enforcing the law to prevent violence at demonstrations by those protesting the law, whose NGOs apparently do receive more than 20% of their funds from foreign sources..
In a post on his X account on May 3, Kobakhidze referred to his discussions with State Department Counselor Derek Chollet, at which Georgia’s Prime Minister expressed “sincere disappointment with the two revolution attempts of 2020-2023 supported by the former U.S. Ambassador and those carried out through NGOs financed from external sources. Had these attempts been successful, the second front line would have been opened in Georgia.”
The Prime Minister also told Chollet “that false statements made by the officials of the U.S. State Department about the transparency bill and street rallies remind us of similar false statements made by the former U.S. Ambassador in 2020-2023, which served to the facilitation of violence from foreign funded actors and to the support of revolutionary processes back then. Also, I clarified to Mr. Chollet that it requires a special effort to restart the relations against this background, which is impossible without a fair and honest approach.”
The Prime Minister concluded his tweet, writing: “I have not expressed my concerns with Mr. Chollet about a brutal crackdown of the students’ protest rally in New York City.”
