As civil.ge reports, Georgian PM’s special representative Zurab Abashidze and Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin met in Switzerland on December 14 and agreed to continue direct dialogue – first of this kind since the August 2008 war – on trade, economy and humanitarian issues, the two diplomats said.
Talks, which lasted for “almost four hours”, were held in “Geneva outskirts”, according to Abashidze, whom Georgia’s new PM Bidzina Ivanishvili appointed as his special representative for relations with Russia on November 1.
Remarks made separately by the two diplomats after the meeting were largely in line with each other and apparently were pre-agreed with each other during the meeting.
“We agreed to disagree on certain issues, so we have defined issues like trade relations, humanitarian and cultural ties and resumption of regular flights as a starting point [for a dialogue] . We have agreed to continue dialogue in this format on the regular basis,” Abashidze said.
