GEORGIA: State of emergency will remain as long as needed says Georgian president Saakashvili
Record ID:
643616
GEORGIA: State of emergency will remain as long as needed says Georgian president Saakashvili
- Title: GEORGIA: State of emergency will remain as long as needed says Georgian president Saakashvili
- Date: 11th November 2007
- Summary: (BN13) TBILISI, GEORGIA (NOVEMBER 10, 2007) (REUTERS- ACCESS ALL) VARIOUS OF OPPOSITION LEADERS INSIDE PARLIAMENT BUILDING SALOME ZURABISHVILI, LEADER OF OPPOSITION PARTY "GEORGIA'S WAY" VARIOUS OF NINO BURJANADZE, SPEAKER OF PARLIAMENT, GREETING OPPOSITION LEADERS VARIOUS OF TALKS IN PROGRESS
- Embargoed: 26th November 2007 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Georgia
- Country: Georgia
- Topics: Domestic Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA4UCK6R9BO8BNCPJ5FLP6N0LS4
- Story Text: Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili says the state of emergency will not be lifted under instruction of any foreign country and will remain as long as needed.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili on Saturday (November 10) said that he would not lift the nation's state of emergency under somebody else's instruction.
He was meeting his country's businessmen, whose support he might need in upcoming presidential elections and his speech was broadcast by state television.
"I'd like to say to our friends and ill- wishers I will not lift it (state of emergency) under somebody else's instruction. I cannot do it, because I am not answerable to foreign ministers of any foreign country, I am answerable to history of Georgia in the following thousand years and the nearest future as well. And when I see, based on my historic responsibility, only than will I lift the state of emergency. And it will happen in the coming days, I want to stress in coming days, as the situation is improving. And I will not keep it for fifteen days as the parliament approved, though I appreciate what it has done," said U.S.-ally Saakashvili.
Hours before Saakashvili's statement a Georgian billionaire, accused of plotting a coup, declared himself a candidate in next year's presidential election, providing a potential high-profile leader for the former Soviet state's opposition.
Leaders from Georgia's main opposition parties met the government and agreed to resume negotiations on Saturday (November 10) for the first time since police crushed street protests three days earlier and Saakashvili ordered a state of emergency.
A 10-party opposition coalition is trying to rally around a single candidate to challenge Saakashvili, whom they accuse of corruption and economic mismanagement, after he announced an early election on January 5.
Billionaire and opposition financier Badri Patarkatsishvili is one of the most prominent opposition figures in Georgia, which is experiencing one of its worst political crises since a civil war in the early 1990s.
But the opposition coalition denied Patarkatsishvili was its chosen presidential candidate. Opposition leader Tina Khidasheli told Reuters she knew nothing of his candidature.
Georgia lies at the heart of the volatile Caucasus region -- an east-west transit route which hosts a pipeline pumping oil from the Caspian Sea to Europe and is wedged between Russia and the Middle East.
Saakashvili justified imposing a state of emergency because he said Russian agents were destabilising the country, charges Moscow denies. He has aggressively pursued a pro-Western agenda since surging to power in a peaceful 2003 revolution.
On Friday, the Prosecutor-General's office accused Patarkatsishvili of plotting a coup and sought to question him.
The opposition has four demands from the government. To bring forward the parliamentary election which is scheduled for the autumn, to reform the election rules, the release of certain jailed opposition figures it says are being persecuted for their political views and the resignation of the president. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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