Georgian Dream’s presidential candidate, Giorgi Margvelashvili, said the government had already achieved “a foreign policy success” by on the one hand “deepening” ties with Europe and in parallel reopening Russian market for Georgian wines and mineral waters. 

“In just few months this government was able to destroy the paradigm which foreign policy ideologists of the previous government were trying to stuff our heads with for last nine years that confrontation with Russia should necessarily be a precondition for moving towards Europe. We have demonstrated that it’s not the case… We were able to reopen Russian market [for Georgian wines and mineral waters] without sliding back, not a whit, in deepening our cooperation with Europe and Euro-Atlantic structures,” Margvelashvili told Maestro TV’s talk show late on August 2 and also claimed that the current government should get all the credit for completing talks with the EU on Association Agreement, which Georgia hopes to initial at the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius in late November.

Asked about construction of physical obstacles along the Abkhaz and South Ossetian administrative boundary lines by the Russian troops, which affect negatively on livelihood of local population, Margvelashvili responded: “We are not saying that we have already solved all the problems. The essential problem related to Georgia’s territorial integrity and security is still standing – [resolving this problem] is our eventual goal… There will always be ongoing problems in foreign affairs in general.”