Georgia’s ruling party has in recent days repeatedly claimed positive trends in the currently deteriorated relations with the US, placing particular emphasis on planned developments they claim will occur in May. Several officials said there are plans for a US delegation with unspecified individuals to visit Tbilisi, with the US Embassy commenting that they have nothing to announce so far.
‘In May, representatives of the US State Department will visit Georgia. Meetings will be scheduled not only with me, but also with various representatives of the Georgian government’, Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Maka Botchorishvili told Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB) on Wednesday.
The level of the visit and who will take part have not been specified by the minister.
According to Botchorishvili, there have been ‘specific steps’ from the US, including ‘several consultations’, visits, as well as a phone call that took place at the end of March between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze.
‘In May, we expect further steps and the continuation of consultations. This could, in a way, be considered the first phase of consultations’, she said, adding that ‘a lot depends on how events develop and what the results of the consultations will be’.
‘At this stage, we can assess the communication and meetings held so far with the US side as positive and productive, as the already planned visits are precisely a reflection and continuation of that’, she concluded.
Kobakhidze also commented on the issue, telling journalists that they will witness ‘specific results’ in ‘specific directions’ by the end of May. According to him, ‘communication between the Georgian and American sides will deepen’ by that time.
‘What and how, I can’t tell you details about this’, he said in his Wednesday comments.
Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze, who also serves as the Secretary General of the ruling party, echoed the rhetoric of his colleagues, noting that there are ‘many concrete facts that allow us to have positive expectations’. He also mentioned a future visit of a ‘delegation from the US’, saying that it’s expected to happen ‘in the beginning of May’, but did not specify who will be included.
‘Let’s see, let’s wait’, Kaladze added.
‘We very much hope that these relations will start from a new page’, he said, describing the US approach toward Georgia under President Joe Biden as ‘categorically unacceptable’.
The ruling party MP Levan Makhashvili, Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on EU Integration, made more explicit assessments.
‘Today we can confidently say that relations between Georgia and the US have been restored’, he said as quoted by IPN on Thursday, adding that ‘the main thing is that the ice has been broken, and we are trying to maintain this positivity’.
‘Simply put, the point we aim for is when we can say that this is indeed the level that satisfies us and amounts to the restoration of a strategic partnership’, Makhashvili added, expressing hope that ‘developments in May’ will ‘substantially contribute to this process’.
OC Media contacted the US Embassy to verify statements made by Georgian Dream representatives regarding a May visit, as well as to seek its position in light of claims about improving bilateral relations.
‘We have nothing to announce at this time’, the embassy said in an emailed response on Friday.
Against the backdrop of statements by ruling party representatives, opposition-leaning TV Pirveli reported that US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Sonata Coulter was expected to visit Georgia. In response to this specific claim, the embassy gave the channel a comment similar to the one provided to OC Media.
Deteriorated relations
This is not the first time that Georgian Dream officials have announced visits by US officials to Georgia and spoken about possible improvements in relations. In the first week of the last month, ruling party representatives, including Kaladze and Makhashvili, referred to April as a month of unspecified visits.
At the time, the US Embassy also told local media that it had ‘no visit to announce at this time’. The comment was published by RFE/RL on 7 April, and the month ended without any publicly known official US visit to Georgia.
The contradictions of April may have prompted Makhashvili to add a disclaimer at the beginning of his Thursday remarks, saying that ‘this time I will not get ahead of events or say in advance what and how things will develop’.
Responding to journalists regarding April statements from the ruling party, Kobakhidze said he himself did not set the deadline.
‘There was a deadline at the end of April, Kakha Kaladze said this […] I don’t know, perhaps Kakha Kaladze said this in a specific context. I did not mention such a deadline’, he added.
Relations between Georgia and the US have sharply deteriorated amidst the Georgian authorities’ adoption of restrictive laws, the disputed 2024 parliamentary elections, and police violence against anti-government demonstrators.
Washington has sanctioned a number of Georgian officials, including Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder and honorary chair of the ruling party. In November 2024, following Tbilisi’s decision to suspend the country’s EU membership bid, the US also halted its strategic partnership with Georgia.
Georgian Dream linked the deterioration of relations to the policies of then-President Joe Biden and openly stated hopes that relations could be restored under the administration of President Donald Trump — something that has yet to materialise.
In February, Vice President JD Vance embarked on a historic visit to the South Caucasus, but skipped Georgia, prompting speculation that the itinerary was an intentional slight towards Tbilisi.
Although Secretary of State Rubio finally spoke with Kobakhidze in March — the highest-level meeting in years — Trump also recently signed a continuation of earlier sanctions that included measures against Ivanishvili.
However, there have also been signs in the other direction in recent months, such as when Georgian First Lady Tamar Bagrationi visited Washington, allegedly at the personal invitation of her US counterpart Melania Trump.
At the same time, several lower level visits to Tbilisi and Washington took place in the previous period.
In January, a congressional staff delegation visited Georgia, while in March the acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs at the State Department, Peter Andreoli, was in the country. In both cases, meetings were held with representatives of both the government and the opposition.
Also in March, a delegation from Georgian Dream’s parliamentary majority visited Washington, where its chair, Nikoloz Samkharadze, addressed the Alliance of Sovereign Nations summit, organised by far-right, pro-Russian Republican congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna.
Earlier, in February, Georgia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Lasha Darsalia travelled to Washington, where he met with representatives of the US State Department, including Brendan Hanrahan, the Senior Bureau Official for European and Eurasian Affairs.
