Saakashvili, Ivanishvili May Meet on Monday
Civil Georgia, Tbilisi / 1 Mar.'13 / 19:48

PM Ivanishvili is ready to meet President Saakashvili on Monday morning as offered by the latter, PM’s office said in a brief statement on Friday evening.

It emerged earlier on Friday that efforts were underway to arrange a meeting between Saakashvili and Ivanishvili as both of them expressed readiness to meet each other.
 
PM Ivanishvili told a government session earlier on Friday that he had offered President Saakashvili to meet on March 1, but the President declined citing tight schedule and a planned foreign trip. “He said he will be busy till Monday,” Ivanishvili said.

President’s spokesperson, Manana Manjgaladze, said in response that after Mikheil Saakashvili expressed readiness earlier this week to hold a meeting, the PM offered to meet on Friday, “but it’s not possible because of President’s schedule.”

“The President offers to hold a meeting on Monday morning; the President reiterates that he’s ready to meet the Prime Minister wherever the latter wants,” Manjgaladze said. “It was the President’s initiative to hold the meeting and blaming the President for thwarting the meeting is completely incomprehensible. The President plans number of important foreign trips, but he is always ready to constructively and actively contribute to developments in Georgia… It is in the President’s interest next week to start with constructive dialogue and agreement. Lots of issues have been accumulated and it is the obligation of the President and the Prime Minister to do everything in order to diffuse misunderstandings.”

In televised remarks during a meeting with UNM lawmakers and senior aides, among them Secretary of National Security Council Giga Bokeria, President Saakashvili said on Friday that he was ready for an “issue-based” and “serious” dialogue with the Prime Minister.

“It is absolutely obvious that the country is now in the mode of political crisis,” Saakashvili said. “We want the country to get back on track of development and for that reason we are ready for a broad, open, flexible, comprehensive dialogue on all the issues, including on constitution.”

In a brief written statement on Friday evening, PM office said: “Today President’s administration made the statement that Mikheil Saakashvili was offering Bidzina Ivanishvili to meet on Monday morning. The Georgian Prime Minister once again agrees and expresses his readiness to meet the President.”

After the October parliamentary elections, Saakashvili and Ivanishvili met twice – once in the presidential palace on October 9 and then in January at a reception in the Georgian Patriarchate on the occasion of Orthodox New Year.

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