A Georgian opposition leader who has worked for two years to improve ties with Russia announced on Wednesday he was halting his efforts as President Mikheil Saakashvili had declared his readiness to start talks with Moscow.
Zurab Nogaideli, a onetime Georgian prime minister who leads the A Just Georgia party, praised Saakashvili's turnaround and said he would suspend negotiations with the pro-Kremlin United Russia to allow the government to engage with Moscow.
Saakashvili said last week that Georgia was ready to develop ties with a "modernized Russia."
"We have no interest in confrontation with Russia," the Georgian president said in late June. "We are ready for dialog with them, including the [current] Russian leadership. We recognize them as partners in talks."
Nogaideli said he expected the new willingness for talks to produce results.
"It's a very interesting idea, an idea about which I have been speaking almost every day for the past two years and because of which... Saakashvili declared us enemies of the country. I hope, everybody will draw conclusions now," Nogaideli said at a press conference after returning from Moscow following talks with United Russia.
Although he praised Saakashvili's intentions, the opposition leader criticized his methods as overly secretive. Nogaideli said the president had used several envoys to try to set up ties with Moscow, whereas the dialog should be conducted in the open and based solely on interests of the state.
TBILISI, July 7 (RIA Novosti)
