MP Shalva Natelashvili, the leader of opposition Labor Party, said Georgia’s drive to join the NATO had caused Russia’s aggression into Georgia.

“The fact that our country is partitioned into three parts is caused by Saakashvili’s dictatorial regime’s pathological drive to join NATO; we have not even become a membership candidate country, but instead we have received Russia’s intervention and the country’s total destruction and occupation,” Natelashvili said on December 4.

“We should learn this bitter lesson of history and Georgia should become independent and sovereign state, which will not be a member of any bloc; only it can help us to regain back our territories… Other options lead to abyss,” he said and added that two-third of countries in the world were not members of any bloc, but “but they feel fine.”

Natelashvili formally is still a lawmaker, but he has not attended a single parliamentary session as his party is boycotting the new Parliament.

In October, 2007, the Labor Party, in particular Shalva Natelashvili, signed a joint declaration of ten opposition parties saying that they “expressing the will of the majority of the Georgian population” were supporting Georgia’s accession to NATO.