Briefing held by the Spokesperson of the President of Georgia Manana Manjgaladze

1/18/2011

The Spokesperson for the President of Georgia Manana Manjgaladze summed up the visit of the President to United States on the first briefing held this year. As she said the President of Georgia was specially invited to United States on an event dedicated to the memory of great friend of Georgia and world level diplomat Richard Holbrook. At the same time, very important meetings and discussions were held at the White House Administration as well as at the Congress.

"It is obvious, that one of the most important meeting was the meeting with the President of United States. During last two months this was the second meeting held between President Obama and President Saakashvili. The Vice President of United States Joseph Biden took part in the negotiations initiated by the White House. During the meeting, it was decided that the wide format meeting would be held. Besides this, all important issues envisaging bilateral relations were discussed during the meeting.

The meeting with the newly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner was of a great importance as well. It is symbolic that Mikheil Saakashvili is the first foreign leader that he met on this position. Meetings with the Senators of Republican and Democratic Parties were held as well.

During his visit in Washington DC the President of Georgia met the Chairman of the Committee on Armed Services Carl Levin and the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs Richard Lugar. Also Republican Congressmen David Dreier and Bill Schuster.

Mikheil Saakashvili awarded Senator Joseph Lieberman with St. George's Order of Victory. I once again would return to the issues discussed during the meetings and point out that the leaders spoke about the details of cooperation in economic and trade spheres as well as security cooperation issues and discussed the ongoing process of Afghan peacekeeping operation", the Spokesperson noted.

Manana Manjgaladze also spoke about the decisions made by MCC that envisages issuance of aid for Georgia. As she noted, the President of Georgia had one more chance to meet the CEO of MCC Daniel Yohannes.

"Georgia and MCC had been actively cooperating during years. The decision made on the issuance additional financial aid for Georgia was the result of hard work carried out by Georgia", she noted.