Opposition Coalition for Change slams CoE Secretary General

After meeting with Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze for the second time and announcing negotiations over the controversial foreign agent law during a press briefing today,  Secretary General of the Council of Europe Alain Berset was highly criticised by Georgia’s opposition Coalition for Change.

Nika Melia, a leader in the Coalition for Change, posted on Facebook saying that the coalition did not meet with Berset yesterday because they ‘were unable to hear any specifics about what the purpose of the visit was’.

‘Today, at [Berset’s] briefing, we hear about the issues of negotiations that are disconnected from reality and are a dream for Bidzina [Ivanishvili] (embellishing Russian law, etc.)’, he wrote, adding that ‘the protest has a clear demand — new elections’.

Nika Gvaramia, another leader of the opposition group, posted on Facebook that ‘there is no negotiation with terrorists. There is nothing to negotiate: only new elections’.

Adding to the criticism, Head of the Coalition for Change Office for Foreign Affairs Giorgi Butikashvili posted that Berset was against meeting members of Georgian civil society and those detained during the protests.

Butikashvili claimed he has ‘email evidence showing how [Berset] rejected all our offers to meet the victims of the Russian regime in [Georgia]’.