Valtonen Rebuts Tbilisi: I Canceled the Meeting

Finnish Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Elina Valtonen has stated that the meeting with the Prime Minister of Georgia was canceled at her initiative, contrary to Tbilisi's announcement. She made this statement in a phone interview with Helsingin Sanomat. Valtonen noted that the meeting with Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze was canceled not by the decision of the Georgian side, but at Finland's initiative, and that the Georgian side was informed about this on the evening of October 14. She also denied the accusations of the Georgian authorities, according to which she made "false statements" or participated in any kind of campaign.

"I was specifically present at the protests that have been going on in Georgia for weeks and months. I wanted to express my support for freedom of speech... It is up to the Georgian authorities to decide how to react to this. Unfortunately, I had to react by canceling my meeting with the Prime Minister in order to get to Azerbaijan," Valtonen noted. Before that, Kobakhidze had announced that he had canceled the meeting with Elina Valtonen "due to her participation in an illegal rally the day before and false statements."

Valtonen arrived in Georgia after her visit to Armenia and from there flew to Baku on Wednesday morning. Initially, her meeting with the leaders of Azerbaijan was scheduled for an earlier date, but they urgently flew to Sharm el-Sheikh for a summit with Trump regarding the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. In Georgia, Elina Valtonen met with Foreign Minister Maka Bochorishvili and expressed her concerns about the state of democracy in Georgia.