“I can’t give you a hundred percent it’s not happening answer” – this is how the US Ambassador Kelly Degnan responded to the question posed on Tbilisi International Conference 2022 on the importance and impact of economic sanctions. The Ambassador added: “I can say that we have seen cooperation with financial sanctions and with the agencies we work with here to try and stem that flow as best as possible”.
According to the Ambassador, the United States has put together a pretty impressive array of countries that are supporting the sanctions and ask all countries - whether they’re in this region or not - to do what they can to close the net, because that is how sanctions are most effective.
“Sanctions are intended to change behavior in the best way to have them be effective is if there are no loopholes” – Kelly Degnan said, adding that this was the message that the US asked the Georgian government to spread.
In this context, the US Ambassador stressed the positive experience with the NBG.
“The Georgian government immediately complied with the financial sanctions. We didn’t even have to go in to ask them before the National Bank was closing that net and has continued to be very vigilant about the financial sanctions. We work very closely as a result of our long partnership with customs and with the border police to try and again, close loopholes as much as we can at the ports and at the borders” – Kelly Degnan said.
The Ambassador also elaborated on the argument that we have been hearing quite often lately – ‘Little Georgia what we can do?!’
“Of course, if you look around this region – Kelly Degnan said - there are examples that Georgia and others can point to. For those who are looking for excuses it’s easy to point to neighbors that have more of an impact on the effectiveness of sanctions than some people here. Little Georgia what can we do? I’m sure you’ve heard that argument. What we can do is to continue to encourage Georgia to do everything it can”.
According to the Ambassador, the understanding that the victory in this conflict is the fastest way to bring peace – “which is what we are all working very hard to do is bring peace as quickly as possible to Ukraine and this whole region” - is to stick together on sanctions enforcements, on watching for export control violations and “all we can do is work closely as we can with the partners through the capabilities with the equipment that we’ve developed over the years”.
Kelly Degnan believes that it’s important that other countries, too, stress the importance of closing loopholes for the economic sanctions to work effectively, “so that it is a stronger argument for all of us to be able to make”.
https://bm.ge/en/article/george-w-bushs-message-to-georgia/115918/
https://bm.ge/en/article/thats-going-to-be-a-tough-nut-to-crack-ed-chow-on-oil-shock-economic-sanctions-and-more/115937/
