Visa-free travel possible despite no diplomatic relations with Russia - Georgian envoy
TBILISI. Feb 21 (Interfax) - The Georgian Prime Minister's Special Representative for the relations with Russia, Zurab Abashidze, has said that the absence of diplomatic relations with Russia cannot be a factor stopping Russia from making a decision to scrap visa requirements with Georgia.
"The practice and our experience show that having no diplomatic relations is absolutely no hindrance to introducing visa-free travel in one form or another," Abashidze said in an interview with the Georgian Rezonansi daily on Saturday.
He was commenting on a recent claim by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who ruled out considering visa-free travel between Russia and Georgia until the two countries have restored their diplomatic relations.
Nor did the two countries have diplomatic relations in 2011 when Georgia unilaterally abolished visa requirements for Russia, the envoy said.
"Russia has now eased its visa requirements. So the subject of diplomatic relations is not in direct correlation with it," Abashidze said.
When asked if there were still some issues to discuss in the format of his meetings with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin, and whether this format has exhausted itself, Abashidze said that the format covers very many spheres.
"Specific areas, such as trade, transport communications, humanitarian issues. Certain problems get addressed from meeting to meeting. Since we don't have proper embassies, the existence of this format is necessary so that the existing problems don't get more complicated," the envoy said.
He said that each meeting with his Russian counterpart is preceded by consultations with the government departments concerned with this topic or another.
It was reported that the next Abashidze-Karasin meeting will be held in Prague in the middle of March.
In August 2008 Tbilisi severed diplomatic relations with Russia in response to Moscow's recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The new Georgian government that came to power after the October 1, 2012 parliamentary elections called normalization of the relations with Russia one of the main priorities of the country's foreign policy.