European Parliament rejects election results as Georgia’s president accuses Kobakhidze of waging ‘war’ on his people.Protesters have clashed with police in Georgia after the governing party announced it was delaying European Union accession talks.
Thousands rallied outside parliament in the capital, Tbilisi, after Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced the controversial move, as masked riot police fired rubber bullets and deployed tear gas and water cannon against the protesters in the early hours of Friday.
Kobakhidze’s decision on Thursday had come hours after the European Parliament adopted a non-binding resolution rejecting the results of disputed parliamentary elections in October over “significant irregularities” and calling for a new vote and sanctions against top officials, including the prime minister.
Kobakhidze, whose Georgian Dream party has been criticised for alleged democratic backsliding and deepening ties with Russia, accused the EU body of “blackmail”, saying that he would put off accession talks until 2028, with the aim of becoming a member state in 2030.
He also said the country would refuse any budgetary grant from the EU until the end of 2028.
President Salome Zurabichvili, a pro-EU critic of Georgian Dream whose powers are mostly ceremonial, said the governing party had “declared not peace, but war against its own people, its past and future”.
At the protests, she confronted police, asking whether they served Georgia or Russia, and slammed the arrests of protesters and journalists at the event, saying the latter had been “disproportionately targeted and attacked while doing their job”.
Police detain protesters outside parliament in Tbilisi, on November 29, 2024 [Zurab Tsertsvadze/AP Photo]
The Ministry of Interior ministry said on Fr …
