Blinken: US to review co-operation with Georgia over foreign agents law
The United States is announcing a comprehensive review of bilateral cooperation with Georgia over the Foreign Agents Act, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said.
“Today I am launching a comprehensive review of bilateral co-operation between the United States and Georgia,” the State Department chief said in a released statement.
According to the secretary of state, Washington hopes Georgian leaders will review the law to “advance democratic and Euro-Atlantic aspirations.”
“As we review the relationship between our two countries, we will take Georgia’s actions into account when adopting our own,” Blinken added.
Last week, the Georgian parliament passed the draft law on foreign agents by a majority vote in the third and final reading. The procedures around the document were accompanied by protests, police dispersed them and detained activists.
The opposition claims that the document is an analogue of the Russian law on foreign agents. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called these statements absurd, recalling that the first country to come up with a system to combat foreign agents was the United States.
Western countries have issued threats against Tbilisi. Thus, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre warned that Washington would fundamentally reconsider bilateral relations if the law came into force. The head of the State Department’s Office of Sanctions Coordination Jim O’Brien, in turn, said that the U.S. could impose restrictions against Georgia if the draft adopted by Parliament is not changed. The EU promised to freeze the republic’s application for membership in the union.