On July 27, 2017 the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (Rondeli Foundation) organized a confidence-building meeting between Russian and Georgian experts and a roundtable discussion in the framework of the project “Georgian and Russian Experts Searching Ways for Normalisation”.
At the confidence-building meeting the project participants discussed the wide range of topics – Georgia’s progress on implementation of the Association Agreement, “Creeping Occupation” across the administrative border line with South Ossetia, Georgia’s NATO and European aspirations, conflict in Ukraine, Political and Economic situation in Russia and number of issues of regional and global importance having impact on Georgia-Russia relations.
The roundtable “Georgia and Russia: Status of Relations, Problems and Perspective” organized in the scope of the abovementioned project gathered more than 25 Georgian and Russian experts and civil servants.
The welcome address was delivered by Amb. Zurab Abashidze, the Special Representative of the Prime Minister of Georgia for Relations with Russia, Ia Tikanadze, the Country Director of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and Kakha Gogolashvili, the Director of the EU Studies Center at the Rondeli Foundation.
The sessions of the roundtable covered various aspects related Georgia and Russia: political relations, regional and global foreign policy dimensions as well as conflicts and regional stability.
The project aims to raise confidence between Georgian and Russian experts, identify ways for further normalization of Russia-Georgia relations through experts’ contributions as well as to assist the existing formats of consultations between the parties to receive the new momentum.
The project is implemented by the Rondeli Foundation in partnership with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES).