Dialogue with Tskhinvali and Sokhumi and fostering people-to-people contacts are key elements through which “future political settlement” should be achieved and no one, including Russia, will be able to obstruct it, Defense Minister Irakli Alasania said on August 9.

“An open dialogue has always been opposed by our ill-wishers in order to prevent a substantial contact, reconciliation and confidence building between the parties. It has been a problem for past 20 years and I am sure that the policy which we have chosen – restoration of people-to–people relations, restoration of bridges between the communities and public diplomacy – is the foundation on which the future political settlement should be based and neither Russia nor anyone else will be able to obstruct it,” Alasania told journalists when asked about PM Ivanishvili’s statement on readiness to engage in direct dialogue with, as he put it, “our Abkhazian and Ossetian brothers.”