TBILISI (Reuters) -The Georgian Foreign Ministry summoned the German ambassador on Wednesday, suggesting he was part of attempts to promote a \u201cradical agenda\u201d in the country ahead of closely watched municipal elections next month. <\/p>\n
In a statement Tbilisi warned the ambassador, Peter Fischer, not to interfere in Georgia\u2019s internal affairs. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was noted at the meeting that the Georgian side is concerned about attempts to promote a radical agenda in the country, which, in turn, contradicts the principles of democracy and contributes to the polarisation of society,\u201d it said in the statement.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tShow Full Article<\/p>\n
In a post on X, the German Foreign Office said: \u201cWe firmly reject the continuing aggressive rhetoric by representatives of the Georgian Dream towards the German ambassador\u201d, referring to the ruling party.<\/p>\n
Authorities in the South Caucasus country have been cracking down on pro-European Union opposition figures and street protesters, who have staged nightly demonstrations for nearly a year following a disputed parliamentary election last October and a subsequent government decision to halt talks on joining the EU.<\/p>\n
Some Western ambassadors, including Fischer, have drawn the government\u2019s ire over their support for the protesters, including by attending their court hearings.<\/p>\n
Fischer said the summoning represented a \u201cnew low\u201d in bilateral relations and said the accusations against him were \u201cbaseless\u201d.<\/p>\n
Tensions have ratcheted up between Tbilisi and European embassies in recent weeks, with Georgian Dream accusing Western envoys of violating the Vienna Convention by holding meetings with opposition parties in a bid to influence the elections to be held on October 4.<\/p>\n
Twenty-six European embassies, including Germany, as well as the EU mission to Georgia, rejected those accusations in a statement on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Opposition parties have repudiated last year\u2019s parliamentary election result and accuse GD of vote-rigging, which the government rejects. <\/p>\n
The upcoming municipal vote has further fractured Georgia\u2019s deeply divided opposition, with some parties boycotting and others choosing to run candidates.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Hugh Lawson)<\/p>\n
Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TBILISI (Reuters) -The Georgian Foreign Ministry summoned the German ambassador on Wednesday, suggesting he was part of attempts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,1824,86327],"class_list":{"0":"post-448712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-germany","11":"tag-reuters-wire"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115261086398768258","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}