Georgia’s Parliamentary Chairman, Davit Bakradze, said on March 23 that the West “should not buy” Russia’s “childish and not serious” argument that was not making non-use of force pledge because it’s not party into conflict.

“Excuse me but whose tanks are standing 40 kilometers away from Tbilisi? So who is party into the conflict if not Russia?” Bakradze said.

Speaking at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly’s Rose-Roth Seminar in Tbilisi, Bakradze said that getting of Russia’s non-use of force was “an immediate objective”, which would help “to relatively stabilize situation around the occupied territories and enable us to create normal ground for the political dialogue” with Russia.

In his address to the conference German lawmaker, Karl A. Lamers, who is the president of NATO Parliamentary Assembly, stressed on the importance of a political dialogue between the two countries and expressed “regret” that members from the Russian delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly refused to participate in the Rose-Roth Seminar in Tbilisi. Lamers said the Russian delegation did not give reasons behind the refusal.