Georgian Foreign Ministry has “invited” Ukrainian ambassador in Tbilisi, Vasyl Tsybenko, “to talk on many issues” including about appointing Georgia’s ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili, who is wanted by the Georgian authorities, as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s adviser, Georgian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Davit Kereselidze, said on February 16.

He said that although this appointment was “surprising” to Tbilisi, the Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson also stressed that “nothing will obstruct” strategic partnership between Georgia and Ukraine.    

“Let’s not cause a stir out of it,” Kereselidze said at a news conference responding a question about summoning of the Ukrainian ambassador. “Ukraine is our strategic partner, which is an important country with which we have and will have friendly relations.”

“Ukraine is in very difficult situation and supporting Ukraine is a primary issue and nothing will obstruct this partnership and good neighborly relations,” he said.

“This appointment [of Saakashvili in Ukraine] was kind of surprising to us because of reasons you know very well,” he said.
 
“I would not call it summoning [of ambassador]; we invited the ambassador… It happens very often when we invite an ambassador to talk about many issues, among them conversation will of course will be about this issue [Saakashvili’s appointment in Ukraine] too,” the Georgian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson said. “Certain questions have been accumulated and these questions of course have to be asked and we will jointly go through these questions.”

He also said that work is still underway to arrange Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili’s visit to Ukraine. “Date has yet to be agreed, but plans [for the visit] have not been changed,” he said.

Ukrainian ambassador arrived in the Georgian Foreign Ministry on Monday afternoon; after the meeting he told journalists that President Poroshenko is convinced this appointment of Saakashvili “will not become an obstacle” in bilateral relations.