Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church Ilia II has called on opposition politicians to come off their hunger strike and resume talks with the authorities. He also called on the authorities to undertake steps to defuse tension.

“We are watching the on-going processes in Georgia with deep concern,” he said at a specially convened press conference on March 20. “We see that the confrontation between the authorities and the opposition politicians, who are on hunger strike, has moved to a stage threatening to human life, which is non-Christian.”

“Therefore, I want to address the hunger strikers [and to ask them] to suspend this form of protest and sit at the negotiation table,” he said.

The Patriarch also asked the authorities to take steps to lessen confrontation and promote the resumption of talks.

“The statements made by the authorities recently mean that they are looking for a way out of the current situation, something that can only be done through agreement between all sides,” he said. “Everybody should remember that, based on state interests, making compromise is an attribute of the strong; it does not mean weakness and stepping back.”

March 20 marks the twelfth day in a hunger strike for five politicians from the eight-party coalition - three of whom are MPs. Six lawmakers from the New Rights Party camped just outside Nino Burjanadze’s office inside Parliament are on their eleventh day (MP Irakli Iashvili joined his colleagues on March 13).