Georgian PM calls OSCE Moscow Mechanism review “unfair campaign”
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has described the activation of the OSCE’s Moscow Mechanism against his country as “another manifestation of an unfair campaign” targeting Georgia and its people.
“For all these years, Georgia and the Georgian people have been subjected to an unfair campaign, and this is just its continuation. You also see that such initiatives come from countries that hold a hostile attitude toward our people. It is regrettable, yet even with these countries, we continue to maintain a policy of unilateral friendship. This is a continuation of the same line, and it does not concern us,” Kobakhidze told journalists on Friday. News.Az reports, citing Georgian media.
The prime minister did not specify which countries he considers “hostile.” The initiative to invoke the Moscow Mechanism was supported by 24 states, including the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Canada, the Baltic and Nordic countries, and Ukraine.
Under the mechanism, an OSCE expert mission will visit Tbilisi to assess Georgia’s compliance with its human rights and democratic obligations. The mission will place “particular emphasis” on events from spring 2024, when large-scale anti-government protests were met with forceful dispersals.
The experts’ final report is expected to cover the state of civil society, media freedom, rule of law, judicial independence, and political pluralism. The OSCE has called on Georgian authorities to cooperate fully with the mission.
Introduced in 1991, the Moscow Mechanism was designed to address specific human rights issues. In its 35-year history, it has been applied only 16 times, including investigations into human rights violations in Belarus following the 2020 presidential elections and in Ukraine amid the ongoing war.
By Emil Kaziyev
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