- Sputnik International
World
Get the latest news from around the world, live coverage, off-beat stories, features and analysis.

Former Georgian President Saakashvili Gets Ukrainian Citizenship – Lawmaker

© Sputnik / Iliya Pitalev / Go to the mediabankEx-President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili speaks at a briefing in the center of Kiev. Mr. Saakashvili came to Ukraine with a group of Eurpean Parliament deputies
Ex-President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili speaks at a briefing in the center of Kiev. Mr. Saakashvili came to Ukraine with a group of Eurpean Parliament deputies - Sputnik International
Subscribe
The former president of South Caucasus’ Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, has been granted Ukrainian citizenship, a Ukrainian lawmaker announced late on Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On Friday, the former Georgian leader met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to reportedly discuss Saakashvili’s upcoming appointment as the governor of the Odessa region in Ukraine’s southwest. The granting of citizenship is the first step toward the nomination.

"Mikheil Saakashvili became the citizen of Ukraine," Mustafa Nayyem, an Afghan-born member of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada parliament, said in a Twitter post.

In February, Poroshenko also signed a decree appointing Saakashvili as his non-staff aide.

Since his ascent to power last June, Poroshenko has been rallying a team of foreigners around himself to assist him in governing Ukraine. In December 2014, he admitted having granted Ukrainian citizenship to US, Georgian and Lithuanian nationals, who were handpicked for Cabinet jobs, including a Georgian minister of health, a Lithuanian economic development and trade minister and a US-born finance chief.

© REUTERS / Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via Reuters Former Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili shows off his identification card as the head of an advisory council in Kiev, in this February 17, 2015 handout photo supplied by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service
Former Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili shows off his identification card as the head of an advisory council in Kiev, in this February 17, 2015 handout photo supplied by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service - Sputnik International
Former Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili shows off his identification card as the head of an advisory council in Kiev, in this February 17, 2015 handout photo supplied by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service
Newsfeed
0
To participate in the discussion
log in or register
loader
Chats
Заголовок открываемого материала