“Only those political systems are healthy which draw adequate conclusions in the aftermath of such occasions,” President Giorgi Margvelashvili stated two days after a large-scale counter-terrorism operation in Tbilisi left three armed suspects and one security forces serviceman dead.

“We are witnessing a situation when a naïve feeling persists that Georgia is in the environment, where there are no risks of large-scale threats, that there are no risks of a crisis being escalated into a more difficult situation, that Georgia does not need coordinated political responses, that there is no need for the [National] Security Council and similar institutions which would manage crisis situations and prevent crises from turning into more serious problems,” the President said.

“Perhaps, all these naïve feelings were given a very clear reponse,” President Margvelashvili added, echoing his earlier criticism of the government for its decision to abolish the National Security Council from 2018.

The National Security Council itself issued a brief statement on November 22, saying it would scrutinize the incident both in terms of the efficiency of crisis prevention and response mechanism, as well as its impact on national and regional security.