President Saakashvili awarded on November 9 Georgian counter-intelligence officers, who were part of the operation to uncover, as the President put it, “spy network of Georgia’s occupant country” and said that Tbilisi was ready for talks with Moscow if the latter demonstrated “good will”.

“This operation was very important, important because our country is obviously under permanent pressure and threat of permanent destabilization attempts… We defend ourselves, and our counter-intelligence agents are on the forefront of this self-defense,” Saakashvili said at the meeting with the Interior Ministry leadership. "A real monster is in struggle against us."

“I would like to thank you and wish you further success in your attempts to stop the actions and tricks of Georgia's enemy... We’ve managed to create small, but efficient counter-intelligence service.”

“We do not want confrontation with anyone; we defend ourselves. If Russia shows good will and decides to launch negotiations with us, Georgia will always be ready for that. If we are talked to as a sovereign state, which has its democratically elected government, we will be ready for [talks] without any preconditions like we have always been,” he added.