The President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili

I would like to greet our friend, the
President of Estonia.

We will never forget that he was among those five country leaders, who came to Georgia on the tensest day in August 2008.

The whole Georgia, Tbilisi, all our citizens, among them those people, who were gathered in front of the Parliament were under the threat.

The leaders who came to visit Georgia showed the huge brevity at the cost of their lives.

This was a decisive day of truth for Europe and the world. Toomas Ilves was one of those, who stood on the side of truth. I recently arrived from Anaklia, where we have a boulevard named after President Adamkus. You know that we have a boulevard here named after Lechand Maria Kaczyński. These leaders are no longer in power. Toomas Ilves is an exception, there is no street in Georgia named after him and thanks God he is an active Estonian politician and the leader of Estonia. He is one of the significant leaders of Europe and I hope that he will continue his activities during many years in future.

I want to thank him not only for supporting Georgia's integration to NATO, but the open-door policy of EU. He has even made statements in these regards many times. The future of Georgia is in EU and in forming the country into European democratic state. We will never forget that you were one of first after John McCain, who said in the Parliament of Georgia: "Today we are all Georgians!"

Toomas Hendrik Ilves:

I am glad that I am in Georgia today. When I first came here the situation was very tough. When I went back to Estonia song festival was going on in our country and people were waving Georgian flags. Not only the politicians, butthe People of Estonia stand beside Georgian people. This is why Estonia is the friend of Georgia and supports reforms carried out after the Rose Revolution. Estonia recognizes territorial integrity of Georgia and doesn't recognize the occupation of the territory of sovereign country. You have made a big step towards the good leadership, you had defeated corruption and as a result of reforms your country became more transparent and you should be proud of it. Many European countries are observing the ongoing processes in Georgia and I want to note that the indicator of your strength will be the elections held in the same democratic way like it was held after the Rose Revolution. Georgian way is a model for many countries that found the way out of autorotation regimes.