“The website of the German Federal Foreign Office continues to list Salome Zourabichvili as President of Georgia and Ilia Darchiashvili as Foreign Minister,” said Georgia’s Parliament Speaker, Shalva Papuashvili.
He described the situation as shameful, contemptible conduct that is actively damaging relations between Georgia and Germany.
“In his most recent interview, the German Ambassador was, in my view, rather disingenuously expressing concern that relations between Georgia and Germany had deteriorated, and attempting to lay the blame at the door of the Georgian Government.
I have a straightforward question. On the German Foreign Ministry’s official website, a brief entry is maintained for every country in the world, listing the President, Prime Minister, and Foreign Minister. In Georgia’s case, this information has not been updated once since October 2024, that is, since the elections, even though, as a matter of routine, every country’s data is refreshed every six months. Georgia’s entry still shows Salome Zourabichvili as President and Ilia Darchiashvili as Foreign Minister.
With whom, then, is the German Ambassador actually in communication? When he was summoned to the Foreign Ministry, whom did he meet? Did he happen to spot Ilia Darchiasvhili anywhere, in an office or a corridor perhaps? What we are witnessing is, frankly, disgraceful. This is, of course, no clerical oversight by some anonymous web administrator, and the German Ambassador is welcome to correct me if I am wrong.
If Germany’s web administrator manages not to forget Russia, a country about which the former German Foreign Minister Baerbock declared they were at war, and keeps that entry current; if Syria does not slip their mind and gets updated; if Iran, about which they are often so passionately vocal, is never overlooked, then not a single country in the entire world is forgotten by this mythical ‘IT person’ on whom someone might conveniently try to pin the blame for Georgia having been left out. This is the contemptible conduct that is genuinely damaging the relationship between Georgia and Germany,” Papuashvili said.
He went on to say that the Georgian people want to know what has happened to Germany, that its Ambassador appears intent on undermining Georgian democracy, and that an answer to this question is owed.
“The German Ambassador’s mission to Georgia spans all of three years. Many of us, myself included, have longstanding personal and professional ties to Germany and the German people, rooted in years of education and experience. What grounds does he have for concern, compared to the concern we feel about what this leadership has done to Georgian-German relations, to a thirty-year friendship built brick by brick between our two countries and governments, I stress, a friendship that began in the era of Genscher and in which Germany’s reputation in Georgian society was exceptionally high?
Today, when I meet people, they ask me about what has happened to Germany. Why is this country, the first to open an embassy in Georgia, now behaving like this? Today, Germany is represented in the eyes of the Georgian people, through the actions of its Ambassador, as though it were a country intent on being the first to undermine Georgian democracy. This is what our citizens are asking us: what has happened to Germany, that its Ambassador is trying to undermine Georgian democracy? So, give the Georgian people an answer on this. And while you are at it, perhaps introduce us to this ‘IT person,’ perhaps they are a Georgian, some UNM supporter, trying to damage Georgia from the inside. I, for one, am waiting for a response,” Papuashvili said.