Saakashvili Furious over Russian Media Coverage of Ukraine
/Civil Georgia, Tbilisi / 2004-11-30 20:09:41
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili harshly slammed the way developments in Ukraine are covered by, as he put it, "newspapers of one of our neighboring countries" making a clear hint on Russia.
"Just take a look what a bacchanalia takes place in some of the newspapers of one of our neighboring countries. There is a horrible bacchanalia which concerns Ukraine and which mainly concerns us as well," Saakashvili said, while addressing the staff of the Georgian State Security Ministry.
The speech was partially broadcasted by the Georgian televisions.
"They have forgotten that Ukraine is a different state, which has its own problems. And these problems were triggered as a result of external interference… Ukrainian people were subjected to an attempt of imposing political will by the external forces. But Georgia became a major target as well. I have looked through the newspapers and 17 articles out of 20, which report about Ukraine, are also about Georgia and personally about me," Mikheil Saakashvili said.
President Saakashvili also added that the Georgian authorities are ready to cooperate with any state "within the frames of Georgia's interests."
Georgian authorities make no secret that they sympathize to the Ukrainian opposition leader Victor Yushchenko.
Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania expressed confidence that the opposition will succeed in Ukraine. "It is impossible not to win when million Ukrainians are protesting in the freeze," Zhvania told reporters on November 30.
In his article published by The International Herald Tribune on [http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/11/29/news/edsaakash.html] November 30 President Saakashvili says that the message of Georgia's Rose Revolution "is widely spreading in the region."
"…democracy is universal and can be successful in post-Soviet states," Saakashvili says, adding that Georgia is "carefully watching similar events in Ukraine."
Meanwhile, predictably, the Kremlin has been using RIAN to voice its own take on the situation. (Via Marius)
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