GUAM participants held a joint briefing The President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili

7/2/2008

I would like to greet all the participants of the first Summit on such high level here in Batumi.

We have chosen Batumi for this Summit specially and I am grateful for the Presidents that they were able to come here.

This city is the symbol of our country, which was destroyed, damaged and was on the edge of separatism several years ago.

This is the city, where peaceful changes, the will and energy of people created the miracle.

We started the revival of Batumi several years ago and I believe that this city will be one of the most successful cities in the Black-Sea region. Batumi will become one of the greatest symbols of economic development.

It needs time, energy and patience, but we will achieve success all together.

Those countries the leaders of which have gathered here today have a lot in common.

We started this morning by unveiling St. Andria the Apostle monument near Gonio-Sarpi waterfall.

This is the place where St. Andria the Apostle baptized the Laz children.

He first preached in Trabzon, it was considered to be Mengrelian village by that time, from there St. Andria the Apostle came to Georgia and baptized Georgian children.

We have an impression that this monument has always stood here.

It is really symbolic, because Ukraine and Georgia, the whole region is connected by a lot of spiritual, physical, human, economic and some other ties.

We witnessed one more revival of one more alliance.

Batumi is grateful to Baku for the development of oil industry and for the bum in the 19th century.

Now the new bum has just started in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan became one of the most important states in Europe, first under the leadership of Heidar Aliev, and then under the leadership of his son.

Ilkham and I lit the natural gas in Sioridze's family today.

Before autumn each family will receive natural gas in Batumi, in Khelvachauri and Kobuleti. We will continue this project and in the nearest future the whole Ajara region will receive natural gas. After our 50-month-program is over, the whole Georgia will receive natural gas from Azerbaijan.

We want to express our gratitude to our friends, who support Georgia's economic development, they support each Georgian family.

The President of Poland and Lithuania are here today.

We learned how to defend our national interests recently.

We are able to work better including foreign policy, but in recent years we did not have enough experience, the Lithuanian diplomats defended our interests more than Georgians.

For our and your freedom, Lithuania is still devoted to the slogan, which we had during our fight for independence of Georgia.

The President of Lithuania was the symbol of solidarity for us.

The President of Poland is here, he represents the synthesis of old traditions and modernity.

We have a lot of historical, spiritual, human ties. Our ancestors used to fight together with Polish people defending their independence.

We have to evaluate these ties deeply.

The Foreign Minister of Czech Republic that is one of the active members of our group of friends and does a lot for our European integration.

All those countries, that are here today, represent a lot of people, these countries are united not only because of the number of the population, but by the will to be integrated into the free, democratic, civilized world, to finally make a European choice.

I believe that Batumi is a very important place from the perspective of today's Summit.

There is an attempt to impose on Georgia a scenario similar to the one that was imposed on Europe and implemented in respect of Czechoslovakia through the Munich agreement, as well as in respect of Poland and the Baltic states through the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact.

I hope that a new "Munich" and "Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact" - dividing Europe into spheres of influence, partitioning territories and revising borders, will not be implemented in today's world.

All the politicians willing to do the same will end this attempt with failure.

We will be able to keep our integrity and peace.

This was all in general what I wanted to tell you.

During the next year Georgia will become chair country of GUAM.

I would like to greet my friends once again and want to express my grattitude to all those who participated in Summit.

Thank you very much!

The President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko

I would like to express my gratitude to Georgian side for their hospitality and for everything, what they wish.

An international society is presented here today.

Each Summit like this is very important, because more and more partners participate in Summit like this.

We have a lot in common.

We opened a monument of St. Andria the Apostle together with the President of Georgia today.

St. Andria the Apostle was a person, who baptized not only local population, but also went to Ukraine and after crossing Dnepr River, he said: Blessed people live here!

We have witnessed that very important negotiations were held in these two days and these negotiations will give us the greatest positive results.

This all started in Baku.

In the frames of GUAM organization we develop cooperation, we view future optimistically and are confident that this project will be successive.

We have discussed many important projects today.

These projects are important not only for GUAM member-states and this region, but for the whole continent and for the whole world as well.

These initiatives are so very important for us, because we have to carry out many projects and among them the project of energy.

We expressed our will to implement these projects

Azerbaijan, Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine will participate in realizing these projects, and the transportation of the energy resources will be carried out by means of these very projects.

We will continue our dialogue to establish transport communication between ports, for example between Batumi and Kerchi ports.

This will be a very useful agreement.

Every person participating in this Summit, demonstrated that we definitely have an action plan.

We realize it perfectly, what is important for our countries and for the world on the whole.

It is true we are connected with the past, but what's more important we are connected with the future.

We take a great interest to be integrated into EU and come close to European security model.

I am sure, that by the position we have today, we will absolutely reach our aims.

It was a great honor for me to participate in this Summit and discuss with you all the problematic issues.

Once again I would like to express my gratitude to the President of Georgia for hospitality.

I thank all my friends and colleagues.

Thanks to everyone who attended the Summit, and participated in the discussion of the most important issues.

The President of Azerbaijan Ilkham Aliev

I want to congratulate my friend President Saakashvili on organizing today's Summit on the highest level.

I want to thank you all for hospitality.

This Summit is very important for further development of our organization and it's a step forward.

Last year Azerbaijan became GUAM chair state in Baku.

Today we have reviewed this year's achievements, but we still have to discuss a lot, because this organization has become more affective during the year.

The cooperation between the member states and with those countries, who participated in these meetings, has become firm.

We can call GUAM a very effective international organization.

Our countries help one another on the international level and we can bring many examples, when our cooperation brought positive results to our countries.

We have to continue this and strengthen our initiatives politically.

I want to state once again that we are grateful to every GUAM member-state, which supports Azerbaijan and supported the UN resolution on territorial occupation of our country.

This is a very important unity and expression of solidarity.

When such resolution was adopted in connection with Georgia's territorial integrity, we did the same.

Issues of regional security should not be ignored, because economic and social progress is dependant exactly on regional security issues.

The territorial integrity of our countries is violated today. Georgia and Azerbaijan went through so much problems, because the policy of ethnic cleansing took place in our countries.

As the result of this policy thousands of people were displaced from their lands, they have lost their possessions and their rights were violated as well.

Millions of people became victims of aggression, separatism and violation of territorial integrity.

We are united and we will do our best, to restore our territorial integrity.

We do everything to solve these problems politically, considering the principles of International Law.

We will do everything to restore territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

The issues of regional security needs a lot of attention and this is why, we have signed rather important documents to further deepen our cooperation.

My friend President Saakashvili has already noted that today we visited one of the Georgian families where the President was very warmly hosted.

This is the symbol of our friendship - Azerbaijanian natural gas was lit in Batumi.

This is a historic event, because as I know, there has never been natural gas in this region.

People will get natural gas in Batumi and in its surroundings.

This happened due to our friendship and cooperation.

This cooperation has a great influence on our political processes, security and development of regional cooperation.

We together develop rather important energetic projects in the region.

It's not a secret, that energy security is the most important issue in the world today.

Georgia and Azerbaijan, two friends and allies, do everything possible to put their share in this project.

We have already carried out successful projects, and now we start new projects.

We cooperate on Odessa-Brodi-Gdansk projects.

Our friends from Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania also participated in this process and I am sure that future initiatives in connection with natural gas projects are carried out by the participation of many states, by which our regional cooperation will strengthen more.

Today it is reality that Caspian, Black Sea and Baltic Countries do everything possible to open new transport corridors and establish close relations with different cultures and peoples.

This is a brilliant example of how different countries can unite their abilities.

GUAM is the format of such cooperation and I am sure it will be successive.

We together will reach more in the future and our partnership will strengthen.

I want to address the Georgian people and tell them, that the friendship between our countries has a long history.

Our generation is really happy, to live in independent countries.

The rulers of our countries dreamed of the independence for centuries.

We achieved this, but we have to try to make the independence stronger.

I once again want to express my gratitude to my friend Mikheil Saakashvili for his hospitality and the perfect organization of this meeting.

I want to state once again, that this summit is a sign of future success.


Communications Office
of the President of Georgia