President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili
First of all I would like to greet our guest, the President of the Republic of Croatia. We are pleased to welcome him to Georgia. You might have noticed that unlike last decade lots of interesting guests are coming to Georgia. Earlier, one or two guests would visit Georgia, while sometimes it might not have even happened. At the same time the circle of the guests did not increase.
Nowadays, the circle of Georgia's friends is growing and their number is increasing every day.
The Republic of Croatia is a specially interesting country for us because our histories intersect each other in many areas - both of us are ancient nations, both of us have ancient statehood, and we have been facing this problem for centuries. The Croatian people had a separatist conflict while this problem still persists in Georgia. Both of us have Euro Atlantic and, generally, European integration aspirations.
Our guest today is a person who is an impotent figure both for the Croatians and for this region because he managed to stabilize his country and ensure that it took a reformative, European and successful development course.
Georgia is in an interesting and important phase. Unfortunately, serious economic leverages are used against us. Georgia is being forced to refuse its European aspirations, the countries peaceful and economic development. Also, open annexation of the Georgian territories are taking place. At the same time Georgia wants to have good-neighborly relations with its neighboring countries.
You know that Turkey has abolished visa regime with Georgia. Now, we are negotiating with Turkey to export the Georgian products to the Turkish market and to turn to a broader and more favorable tax-free regime.
We also talked with the Croatian President about simplifying visa regime with Croatia for a large category of Georgians, in order to promote movement, tourism development and working relations. We will develop these links in many directions in the future.
To spite those political forces which want to stop Georgia's development at any expense, we should develop even more dynamically.
Last year, with President Yushchenko we set up the Community of Democracies in Borjomi.
The first meeting of this organization which took place in Kyiv was very successful. But the meeting in Vilnius turned out to be even more successful because many European leaders and the US Vice President were participating in it. This was a great political victory for Georgia. Of course this union, a new regional forum, is not directed against anyone.
It is absolutely clear that this forum serves the aim to strengthen and develop its member states. At the same time it should be mentioned that the Russian TV companies and some of the Russian politicians had an absolutely inadequate and hysteric reaction about the fact that we want to strengthen horizontal political ties with all the strong countries of the world and stand on our feet, so that everyone could hear our voice very well and not to be alone. These forces should know that this will never happen.
No one will ever oppress a neighboring country just for its freedom, development and prosperity aspirations. We continue going towards a better life.
Yesterday I was in Batumi where we launched building of a new airport. An interesting and great investment has been made there. The same processes are happening in the whole country. We want to pursue this path and make international cooperation even deeper.
We actively continue increasing our international links; we started consultations within the framework of the CIS about the future of this organization.
Georgia is ready to take a decision important for its people, but I consider that this decision should not be made individually. We want to make collective, elaborate and well-coordinated steps even in relation with the CIS and its future.
We are threatened that if Georgia leaves the CIS they will increase the price on electricity, but there is not any correlation between leaving the CIS and the electricity price. These forces will do everything to stop Georgia's progress. For instance, the Baltic states are not the members of this organization but the price on electricity is almost the same as in Georgia.
Our aim is to carry on implementing the reforms at a faster pace and develop our economy more. We should study a lot from out Croatian friends, copy the Croatia's success recipe and send the representatives of our ministries to Croatia to share in this experience. There is nothing to be ashamed of. We have achieved certain results but we should also share in the success story of the other countries. The country of my friend the Croatian President Stjepan Mesić is among these countries and I am going to make our cooperation even deeper.
Thank you very much.
The President of Croatia Stjepan Mesić
I had open and fruitful talks and discussion with President Mikheil Saakashvili and other government representatives. I can say that we continued talking about the same thing which we started discussing in Croatia. Consequently, talking on the same issues will continue in a friendly environment and we will share each others experience in the achievements of democracy in our countries.
Emphasis should be made on the steps which both countries made towards NATO membership.
Hence, the reforms which we have already implemented or which have to be implemented and which insure development of democracy and integration into these structures deserve great importance.
We are ready to continue partnership and share with you our experience. As you know, Croatia is always ready to help you and share with you its own experience in those spheres in which we have already achieved a success.
We also want to use the knowledge and experience of those countries which, in terms of development, are undergoing the same process and are following the same path.
When we are talking about bilateral relations, I am happy to tell you, that during this visit (and this is the first visit of the President of Croatia to Georgia) we started working on creating a legal basis whose absence makes the cooperation impossible.
I consider that we are having a great potential to develop this relations and we should do everything for that.
We should use this potential for the benefit of both countries. I consider that this is necessary. When we are talking about the existing situation in the specific regions and acute problems the world faces nowadays, it should be mentioned that, to our mind, there is not a problem which can not be solved through negotiation and dialogue.
It is clear that in this specific situation we are talking about the readiness of both sides to come to an agreement.
I want to share with you our experience and, based on our experience, tell you that it is better for the negotiations to last ten years that one day - war.
It's a great honor for me to be here today. I am very satisfied with the negotiations and conversation I had with President Saakashvili.
I hope that during my stay in Tbilisi the talks will continue and our dialogue will be constructive and fruitful.
Now, I can say that my visit to Georgia will be one more important success in terms of strengthening and deepening relations and cooperation between the two countries in the future.
I also hope that the Georgian President will pay an official visit to the Republic of Croatia.
Communications Office
of the President of Georgia