Putin: Moscow would be glad to see Georgian president, premier
MOSCOW. Dec 18 (Interfax) - Moscow will be glad to welcome Georgian leaders if there is the will in Tbilisi [for this to happen], Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
"If the Georgian administration deems this possible, we will be glad to welcome any representative, both the president and the prime minister, to Moscow," Putin said at his annual press conference on Thursday.
"Regrettably, there are very few contacts [between Moscow and Tbilisi now], they are practically non-existent," Putin said.
"The internal political struggle goes on [in Georgia]," the president added.
He reminded reporters that Russia and Georgia had made important steps to meet each other halfway.
"We were asked to liberalize deliveries to the Russian market and we did as we were asked in response to Georgia's decision not to impede the Russian accession to the WTO in spite of our political disagreements. That was a very good gesture made by the Georgian leadership and we responded to their gesture by opening our market. We are ready to make further progress in this field," Putin assured reporters.
A Georgian journalist asked Putin about the problem of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Putin said he "had been trying to persuade [former Georgian President] Mikheil Nikolayevich Saakashvili on no account to start the hostilities." "You know the result," he added.
Saakashvili is now in hiding, Putin said. "We have absolutely nothing to do with this. No one can suspect us in the incumbent Georgian authorities' shooing him away across the globelike a lice-ridden man in the baths. This is not happening on our initiative," the president said.
