Georgia recalls Ukraine ambassador after Saakashvili gets new govt. post

Georgia's Foreign Ministry on Friday recalled its ambassador in Kiev after the former Georgian president was appointed to lead an advisory body in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday put Mikheil Saakashvili in charge of the executive committee of the National Reform Council.

The move angered Georgia, where Saakashvili was president from 2004-2013. In a statement Friday, Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani pointed out that Saakashvili has been convicted by a Georgian court and a warrant has been issued for his arrest.

"That is why we have made the decision to recall Georgia's ambassador in Ukraine, Temuraz Sharashenidze, for consultations in Tbilisi. I want to emphasize that despite this regrettable decision, we are not considering termination of diplomatic relations between our countries or overlooking our strategic partnership," Zalkaliani said.

A Georgian court in 2018 convicted Saakashvili on abuse of power charges that he and his allies described as politically motivated. Saakashvili was initially hailed for streamlining the government and fighting corruption, but his popularity was eroded by a crackdown on protests and the 2008 war with Russia that led to the loss of two separatist provinces.

Zelensky on Friday said Georgia's decision to recall the ambassador was "a mistake" and vowed not to reciprocate.

"We have great relations with Georgia, with the Georgian nation. No matter what, we will not recall our ambassador back to Ukraine for any consultations," Zelensky said.

Saakashvili's appointment marks a remarkable political comeback for the former Georgian leader.

He started a new political career in Ukraine in 2015 when then-President Petro Poroshenko appointed him governor of the Odessa region. The two fell out a year later, and the president stripped Saakashvili, who led anti-government protests, of Ukrainian citizenship.

Zelensky, the comedian who unseated Poroshenko in last year's election, quickly restored Ukrainian citizenship for Saakashvili.

Ukraine must drain corruption swamp, Saakashvili vows

The former president of Georgia further pledged on Friday to help his new boss, President Zelensky, clean out a political “swamp” of oligarchs’ interests that he said were preventing Ukraine from prospering.

He spoke to Reuters in an interview a day after being appointed to advise Zelensky on reforms, a surprise political comeback in his adoptive country for one of the post-Soviet world’s most recognizable figures.

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He joins Zelensky as Ukraine faces the prospect of a recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic — which Saakashvili argued makes sweeping reforms all the more urgent.

“President Zelensky has a clear mandate from the population of Ukraine to drain the swamp, to clean up the corruption mess that Ukraine has inherited, and to go against the vested oligarchic special interests,” he said.

Time has been lost since Zelenskiy’s election last year, he said. “But now, with the challenge of imminent, huge crisis ... there might be no other option but fast reforms and changes. Because we are dealing with a situation when Ukraine either changes or disappears as we know it.”

Echoes of Trump

His language echoes that of US President Donald Trump, who vowed to “drain the swamp” in Washington of lobbyists and elites, and has expressed admiration for Saakashvili.

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The 52-year-old had initially been sounded out for the post of deputy prime minister, but the move met with resistance in parliament.

“The point is that President Zelensky, by appointing me, demonstrated he is prone to unconventional, brave steps,” Saakashvili said.

“I myself was surprised and President Zelensky was taken by surprise by the amount of fear that my candidacy generated. And this is a fear of not a healthy personal nature. This is a fear of old lobbies that don’t want any change,” he said.

He promised to help drive an overhaul of the judicial system — long seen as riddled with corruption — as well as deregulation and tax reform.

“We’ve been unable to create state institutions and democratic framework for real change. Rather we created some ugly post-Soviet structure that is more or less, in many ways, more corrupt than the Soviet Union ever was,” he said.

Running feud

Under Poroshenko, Saakashvili was invited to run the southerly Odessa region in 2015, based on his track record of fighting corruption as Georgia’s leader after its 2003 Rose Revolution.

He was among several foreign politicians and technocrats to be given key posts by the pro-Western leadership in Kiev after the Russian-backed president, Viktor Yanukovich, fled in the face of street protests.

But the appointment descended into a running feud. Saakashvili resigned, accusing Poroshenko of corruption, which Poroshenko denied.

Ukraine stripped Saakashvili of his new citizenship when he was abroad, but he barged his way through a checkpoint at the Polish border to get back into Ukraine in September 2017.

Five months later, he was deported after playing a cat-and-mouse game with law enforcement that saw him variously live in a tented protest camp, go on hunger strike, and break out of a police van with the help of his supporters.

A benchmark for the progress of Ukraine’s reforms has been its negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for a new loan agreement. The government hoped to secure an $8 billion package but the IMF this week switched to what is likely to be a more modest loan deal with fewer riders.

Saakashvili saw it as evidence of the international community’s skepticism about Kiev’s ability to pass reforms, but also called for the IMF to increase its lending to Ukraine.

(Source: News agencies)

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