The President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili met the staff of the Ministry of Internal Affairs today, thanked them personally for the successful operation in revealing Russian Federation military intelligence spy network and criminal activities carried out by them. Mikheil Saakashvili awarded 13 of them with Vakhtang Gorgasali I, II and III category Orders.
First of all I would like to speak about the last public opinion survey, because we all saw that the indicators of trust towards police is extremely high - it reaches 84 percent.
This is an absolute record not only for our region, but in Europe and in general around the world - in this survey the course of Georgia's government has the highest support starting from 2004. During our conversation on the necessity of uniting people, we must envisage that people today are more united in the major issues of united policy than ever before.
The rating of government sometimes increases and sometimes decreases - this is an ordinary thing, people sometimes might like politicians, or dislike them in some cases, but the fact that the credibility towards police as towards an institution is very high - is very pleasurable - no matter how high is the quality of their support to the particular Ministers, President or in general towards political course. This is your merit and is one of the major preconditions for the development and stability of our country.
Without the consolidation of the society and you we wouldn't be able to maintain any security regimes that we have today and on very high level. No crimes would come out like it comes out today and on the contrary, we would have numerous problems within the country. Today we are facing many challenges, but always there is a chance to improve the situation.
Professionalism must develop on the permanent bases and must meet modern requirements. For example, according to the data of first two months of 2010 the number of tourists had increased by 41 percent.
Next year we are expecting 60-70 percent growth. And in nearest years, in maximum three years the number of tourists will reach five millions.
This matter is a distinctive challenge for police.
We have simplified car registration procedures very much and as a result in the neighboring countries the export of cars reached record indicator. Many people started this business and many people have incomes from this source. Of course it would be better if we would employ people in car production, but export of secondary cars is a source of income for many people. By simplifying this procedure, the production of this business got simple as well and people got jobs, as a result.
I would like to speak about the operation that you have carried out in order to reveal the spy network of country occupying Georgia.
This operation was very important, important because our country is obviously under permanent pressure and threat of permanent destabilization attempts.
We have refused having service like old security committee and have dismissed the Ministry of Security. We are the only country among CIS countries that didn't have security service. Instead of it we have created new service staffed by young people mostly and by the best cadre of old generation.
We managed to develop a small, but very effective and flexible counter intelligence service based on absolutely new principles, with rather low resources, but suitable for democratic and non-repressed society. The counter intelligence service that was created on the basis of trust of our people and developed in conditions of mastering new methods.
A real monster is in struggle against us, but it is possible to defeat it, because we are working night and day and our vigilance, first of all lays in diligence. We will be able to neutralize this monster exactly with this attitude.
Now some people are afraid that our relations will get tenser with our neighbors this way. I want to remind everyone on what type of relations does Georgia and Russia have right now. Russia is the occupant and invader of significant territories of Georgia among them the occupant of one third of our Black Sea region.
Could the situation get any tenser than it is right now?
Russia is an occupant and invader and it tries to legalize the occupation of these territories all around the world - though they fail to do it. By their fault about 500 thousand people have no homes. Are we still talking about tension and different evaluations?
If we want to live in the position of ostrich and we want to lie to ourselves, if we want to try to get used to these facts and we would try to avoid make the situation tenser - it is a different story.
We are struggling for the final liberalization of Georgia. This is first of all development and strengthening of Georgia's non-occupied part, establishment of firm state and as a result of it - we will start de-occupation of Georgian territories. This means final liberation from occupants and invaders and expelling them out of Georgia.
This is why it is a permanent dilemma of every state serviceman and of our people in general.
We defend ourselves, and our counter-intelligence agents are on the forefront of this self-defense.
I would like to thank you and wish you further success in your attempts to stop the actions and tricks of Georgia's enemy for the wellbeing of our people.
Today we will hold a closed awarding ceremony of some of our operative serviceman, because envisaging the fact that what type of people we are dealing with it is not desirable to show counter intelligence serviceman even in conditions of democracy.
We do not want confrontation with anyone; we defend ourselves. If Russia shows good will and decides to launch negotiations with us, Georgia will always be ready for that. If they talk to us like to a sovereign state, which has its democratically elected government, we will be ready for talks without any preconditions and will be ready to start negotiations on the major issues at any place at any state level.
As state-to-state, we are ready to hold this dialogue. If they want to talk to Georgian people on the language of occupation, blackmail and bribery; using spy networks - it is their choice. But I think it will not be useful for our future relations that I hope will restore one day and I am sure it will not be useful for their interests and regional security as well.
On one hand we are ready to talk and on the other hand to be always sober envisaging the phenomenon that we are dealing with.
Thank you very much and let's move to the next stage of the ceremony.