21 Jun 2019 12:05

IAO General Assembly President Gavrilov assesses Georgia events as coup attempt linked with Saakashvili

MOSCOW. June 21 (Interfax) - Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (IAO) General Assembly President and Russian MP Sergei Gavrilov has said that a coup attempt is currently taking place in Georgia.

"Our common opinion is that what's happening in Georgia now is an obvious coup attempt and an attempt to seize power by extremist forces that are largely being coordinated from abroad and are linked with Mr. Saakashvili [former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili]," Gavrilov said at a press briefing in the Russian State Duma on Friday.

"Our interparliamentary assembly, as a major international parliamentary forum, has been used as a pretext for sparking anti-Russian hysteria and discrediting Georgia as an Orthodox country. It is a blow to Georgian Orthodoxy and the Georgian Orthodox Church," he said.

First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee Alexei Chepa, who was a member of Gavrilov's delegation to the IAO General Assembly session in Tbilisi, said for his part that "all of this was coordinated from somewhere in the West."

"The deputies who broke into parliament right at the beginning were speaking on the phone in English all the time and constantly reporting the ongoing events to someone. The actions that have taken place and are continuing now were planned in advance and are directed against our country, among others," Chepa said at the same press briefing.