Interview | U.S. Assistant Secretary Jim O’Brien

Jim O’Brien, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State spoke to the Voice of America (VoA)–Georgian service on May 3, just as the Georgian government has leveled several high-level accusations concerning the role the U.S. government has allegedly played in Georgia’s recent past. We are offering you the English-language original video and a full transcript of that conversation. Both are courtesy of VoA, with our minor edits for clarity.

Ani Chkhikvadze, Voice of America: Thank you very much for your time. Let’s start with what we see going on in Georgia. We see tens of thousands of people taking to the streets. But we got to this point gradually. We saw the Georgian government take several steps, whether it be not fully siding with Ukraine, or blaming the West for trying to get Georgia involved in the war. So, when we talk about Georgia right now, do we know where the Georgian government stands? Let’s start with that.

A pleasure to be here. What we’re talking about is that Georgia has said it wants to join the EU and have a relationship in transatlantic organizations such as NATO. So, in that context, we have discussions that we might not have with other countries. So the government has said it wants to have free and fair elections and will invite international observers. That’s something that involves us, naturally, because it’s part of joining the club that we’re a part of, in the case of NATO, and we strongly support, in the case of the EU. In that context, to begin to put special and we think, discriminatory requirements, on the organizations that are coming in to do things the Georgian government wants, like observe and help free and fair elections, we think it is problematic.

Has the Georgian government made a choice to be with Kremlin? Does that seem evident to you at this point? Is this about the Russian law or the pro-Russian regime?

What we know is that 80% of Georgians want to be in the EU, and we strongly support that aspiration. The law, I think, is just an issue of going too far in trying to restrict what is normal in Europe and in the transatlantic space. And so it’s a conversation back and forth. It’s unfortunate that a lot of this plays out on what used to be Twitter. I mean, this is really about a government that has pledged itself to enter a process of working with other governments, including the United States.

Is that pledge still here?

Well, that’s what we’ve said. We would like to work with them. When the EU senior representative, Mr. Koopman, was there yesterday. He said we’d want to work with you on this law. We had said, come to Washington, work with us on this law. And it’s turned into a sort of odd bit of public assertions of strength. And I really think this is about how governments talk to each other when they’re trying to join the same club.

I understand you’re trying not to answer my question directly, but I’m going to repeat that: Is this about Russian law at this point, or is this about the Georgian Dream having made a choice, a choice not to be part of the West or abandoning its people’s declared will?

I think I am answering what I can answer. What I know is on the table right now is this Russian-based foreign agent law, and we and the EU have said it’s important to bring this in line with European standards so that the organizations can do what the government has said they want done, and that we want to do together. Now, as far as what the Georgian Dream does for its choice, that’s up to them.

And in this regard, I know, we saw the founder of the Georgian Dream speak the other day. I was a little surprised at how ill-informed he seemed to be. He’s not under sanctions by the West. He seems to think he is. And I’d hope that he could find other sources of information, maybe talk to people who understand the West and who have been truthful with him in the past. We’d really like to see that kind of conversation because it’s a shame to have such an influential person seem to be operating on the basis of some misinformation.

That was one of my questions, and you almost answered it. But he’s been making these statements for over 12 years. So, he has blamed you for the 2008 war, a war in Ukraine as well as repeated the statements we’ve seen from Vladimir Putin and Maria Zakharova [Russian MFA Spokesperson] about the color revolutions, that you were behind it. On top of that, today, the Prime Minister accused you of trying to organize the revolution in Georgia. How do you reply to that?

Well, I just reply, that it’s false. We haven’t fomented any of these accused revolutions. And in Georgia, especially, we see again, more than 80% of the people want to be part of the EU. That’s nothing to do with us except that we support that aspiration. These are activities that the people want to see. And so the question is: is the government trying to get a different people or is it going to follow the desires of its people? But that’s a thing within Georgia. The idea that a U.S. diplomat was involved- I have no idea what they’re talking about. I really wish they could explain it and just stop saying things like that.

We hear a lot of words of… criticism towards the government for the ill-treatment of the protesters. But we don’t see any measures taken. What are the measures you are going to take if you don’t see this law taken back?

Well, I think the first thing is, sort of what you trying to do with your questions. That is to clarify what’s at stake. Georgia said last fall it wants to join the EU. And we were very pleased when the EU made the decision to declare Georgia a candidate which took a lot of work by the government.

What’s at stake? The measures you’re asking about are that that’s not going to be possible if the government decides it wants to go off and just start, implementing Russian-based laws. So that’s really there. If we clarify this and if that’s what the government says is we don’t want to be in the EU, we want to do this other thing, then we’ll have very different conversations about what’s possible, what we hope, and what we want to see is what we saw with Mr. Koopman yesterday, that they will begin to talk to us about how to bring this idea of this law into conformity with European standards.

That’s what I’m going to follow up on. You see the statements that say that the West is trying to get Georgia into the war. You see the criticism towards towards Ukraine. You see that you are being blamed for the 2008 war. You are accused of being behind the revolutions. You said that the Georgia government did a lot of work for the candidate status. However, we did not see, for example, de-oligarchization taking place in Georgia… All these indicators…Do you still see future cooperation with the current Georgian government?

I think there are two important things. One is Russia is bringing Georgia into its invasion of Ukraine, starting to build a giant military port in the territory that it occupies. It’s continuing to seize and at times kill Georgian citizens, and it’s continuing to occupy territory. It was for a time attempting to move military items, goods that would be used to produce military munitions through Georgia. And the Georgian government made a very wise decision to try to stop all that as best it could, and it’s done a pretty good job.

So, that was Russia trying to bring Georgia into that war. What’s in front of us right now is that Georgia said it wanted to join the EU. It’s the start of a process. We are just a day or two after the 20th anniversary when ten countries joined the European Union; it took them, on average, 10 to 11 years to go through the process. And so they started in some cases from very similar places.

So you don’t judge the end result by where they are at the start. It’s by their willingness to go through the process and work collaboratively. And that’s really all that’s at issue right now.

Let me reframe this because you are still not answering my question. I understand the diplomatic part of this, but the question is, what else will it take for you to consider the Georgian government to be on the side of the Kremlin?

What we’ve said is there’s still time to work collaboratively on this law, to do the thing that the Georgian people and the government together want. So failing to do that, we’ll take a look.

But we’re not there yet. We’re still at a point where we can work together collaboratively.

Okay. We saw the statement from the Prime Minister towards your colleague. Actually, that reminded some of the Soviet approach. We saw that the Soviet Union often pointed out certain things that were going wrong in the United States. And the Prime Minister said I’m going to quote, “I have not expressed concerns with Mr. Challet about the brutal crackdown of a student protest rally in New York City.” How would you reply to that?

Well, I mean, it’s good of him to mention a thing he didn’t mention, but I, I think what I take from that is we have a shared concern that protests be managed responsibly, peaceful protests be allowed. And so I hope that that’s the approach the Georgian government takes, because, again, those are the standards we hold ourselves to. And Georgia is asking to join the clubs we support. That’s where this conversation begins.

You imposed sanctions in Georgia against Mr. Partskhaladze, however, we do not see Europeans take the same actions. Are you acting in concert with the European allies on the question of Georgia?

Yes. And we have different tools that work in different ways. So, the European Union is looking at dispersing a fairly large amount of money at the start of the candidacy process – that would go away. But that’s their tool. Our tools are different and we’ll use them when it’s appropriate. But again, we’re not there right now. We are kind of at the stage of getting to learn how to work together in this new environment where Georgia has said it wants to join these clubs. So that’s what we are trying to work through right now.