Saakashvili’s remarks at the National Security Council meeting, Tbilisi, July 8:

You know that the visit of the U.S. Secretary of State to Georgia will start tomorrow.

I think that this visit is of a serious foreign policy importance and a serious facilitator of development of our statehood

Besides the political aspects, this visit has other aspects as well – this is support of Georgia’s democratic course, democratic progress, which was recognized by the entire world after the two elections held in Georgia and the United States is actively supporting it.

This is support to the inflow of investments to Georgia, that would enable us to implement our 50-month plan of creating new jobs and new opportunities. We should jointly achieve our major goal – Georgian without poverty.

When Georgia has a great international support, when Georgia is engaged in great processes, it also promotes our economic, social development, as well as the implementation of our 50-month program and the poverty reduction plan.

We are doing our best to adhere to peaceful resolution of territorial conflicts.

We have firmly committed ourselves to take all the necessary steps for peaceful and diplomatic settlement of conflicts.

I think that the Secretary Rice’s visit is an important part of this effort.

Georgia spares no efforts to improve the relations with Russia and to find the way out of that gravest crisis, in which we have appeared due to Russia’s moves against Georgia’s territorial integrity and in violation of all international norms.

In this regard, I cannot but express deep concern over recent explosions and attempts of escalating violence in various regions of Georgia [referring to Abkhazia and South Ossetia].

I want us to understand very well, who are interested in escalation of violence, including in these explosions.

A summit of G8 was held in Japan today, where one of the major issues of discussion, as far as we know, was Georgia. The visit of Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. Secretary of State, is planned. Georgia is developing fast and this economic development needs calmness and stability and the only thing Georgia needs now the least is violence, explosions or unrests in any region.

Behind these acts of violence there are people, who want to distract attention from the major issue - and this is Georgia’s development – to hamper us in this development as much as possible, and the second, the major issue that is happening in this region – rough violation of Georgia’s territorial integrity by the Russian Federation, full negligence of the principles of international law and the attempts of annexation of the most important parts of the Georgian territory.

Most important what is happening now by means of these provocations is escalation and distracting of attention from the major issue.

Therefore, we should continue consultations with Russia. I instruct everybody to be very watchful and cautious; we should not yield to any provocations. But I also want to call on our friends to increase diplomatic efforts ten-fold in order to prevent the attempts of annexation and illegal occupation of Georgian territory.

Today some Russian diplomats pretend not to have any links to what is happening there [in Abkhazia and South Ossetia] now.

They try to portray that there are internal problems, clashes, explosions saying that we are here to make these people talk with each other. But just they are the key reason behind all the problems, especially within past several months.

We are ready to have a dialogue with any groups, any citizens, including any illegal formations, but most important is not to allow the infringement of our territorial integrity and not to allow any provocations and escalation of tensions.

All this [escalation of tensions] is coinciding with great international developments around Georgia. Therefore, I call on everybody to be organized, watchful and I am sure that nobody will be able to derail us from the way of peaceful development and peaceful restoration of our territorial integrity.