Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin met with leader of Georgia’s opposition Democratic Movement party, Nino Burjanadze, in Moscow on February 19.

“Various aspects of Russian-Georgian relations were discussed with focus made on the need of their normalization,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a brief statement on its website.

It was Burjanadze’s third visit to Russia over the past seven months. She met Karasin, as well as Russia’s State Duma speaker Sergey Naryshkin in Moscow in July, 2015 and then speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament, Federation Council, Valentina Matviyenko in St. Petersburg in September.

She said after those previous visits that her contacts with the Russian leadership aimed at “contributing positively to the Russian-Georgian relations and at preparing ground for concrete steps to resolve the problems after [her party] comes into power.”

In late December, when Russia eased visa requirements for the Georgian citizens, Burjanadze claimed credit by saying: “There are often questions about why I visit Russia – that’s one of the results of those talks that I have been carrying out, constantly raising the issue of simplification of visa rules.”