TBILISI, January 8 – The U.S. military operation in Venezuela has spilled into Georgia’s bitter politics, with rival camps in Tbilisi arguing over who matters more for Georgia’s security and future: Washington or Brussels.
The U.S. military operation last Saturday saw special forces capturing President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, who later were brought to New York and put on criminal trial. Trump said the U.S. would “run” Venezuela.
Georgia’s parliament speaker Shalva Papuashvili said on Tuesday that the “few-minutes” operation in Venezuela showed the European Union “no longer exists” as a guarantor of international order or as a global geopolitical player.
An opposition lawmaker, Salome Samadashvili from Lelo, fired back the same day, accusing what she called “servants” of billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili’s “provincial autocracy” of being afraid to criticize U.S. President Donald Trump. She contrasted Papuashvili’s Brussels-focused rhetoric with the Venezuela operation and the claim that Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro is being tried in New York.
Former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, who is currently imprisoned, also weighed in online on Tuesday, using crude language to mock the ruling party and arguing that Trump, described in Saakashvili’s post as influenced by the “deep state,” had captured Maduro and marched him off to prison.
While the ruling GD party clashed with its opponents over the country’s strained relationship with EU institutions, Georgia’s Foreign Ministry said it is closely following events in Venezuela and voiced hope that the situation will evolve in line with the interests of the Venezuelan people.
The ministry added that recent developments could prompt Caracas to revoke its recognition of Georgia’s “occupied” regions, the breakaway territories Abkhazia and South Ossetia, a decision Tbilisi has long described as illegal under international law.
