We want to get back to a positive partnership with the government. But recent actions led to the Secretary determining that those individuals and their families, those individuals who are complicit in some of the actions undermining democracy, spreading disinformation, violence against citizens, will be restricted from entering the United States, - US Ambassador to Georgia Robin Dunnigan said in an exclusive interview given to InterPressNews.
According to her, over the last several months, the Georgian government has taken some actions that are extremely concerning.
“When I came to Georgia in October, I came knowing that there were some challenges in our relationship. But I came absolutely committed to working with the government and the people of Georgia to get back on track to this rich partnership that we have. And you know, we did that together. When I first got here, we made some real progress. One of the first things I did was to travel to Brussels to advocate for Georgia getting candidate status, which Washington also supported and the EU, which of course was responsible for the decision, made an excellent decision in my view. So we were doing I think very well in a fresh start on our relationship.
But over the last several months, the government has taken some actions that are extremely concerning. One has been the disinformation and negative rhetoric about the West. Another is the foreign agents law, which we believe is contrary to the stated aspirations of the Georgian people. Another is some of the violence and intimidation against peaceful protesters, civil society and opposition party members. And all of those actions led us to the unfortunate circumstance of where we are today, which is the US imposing visa restrictions. Now I want to reiterate that none of us in the United States wants to be doing this. We want to get back to a positive partnership with the government. But recent actions led to the Secretary determining that those individuals and their families, those individuals who are complicit in some of these actions undermining democracy, spreading disinformation, violence against citizens, that they will be restricted from entering the United States.
So, as you mentioned, one tranche has been implemented, and those people who have visas were notified, they are no longer valid, and if they didn't have a visa, they don't qualify anymore. And the Secretary of State has been very clear that there will likely be further consequences. Does it have to happen? No. I would very much like to see the government reverse course and take action so that we don't have to impose more consequences. Is it targeted against the Georgian people? Are we trying to sanction the Georgian people? Absolutely not. We want what's best for this country. We want this country to be successful. And so the consequences that we've imposed are a tool to try to change behavior, not to punish the Georgian people. They're very targeted. And my hope is that they will send a signal, so some of the negative behavior can be reversed”, said the Ambassador.
