Visit of the Foreign Affairs Minister, Salome Zurabishvili, to the parliament never ends without vociferous statements. Last visit was not the exception too. The only difference was that if previously a certain group of the parliamentary majority was attacking Zurabishvili, now they criticized the representative of the European Commission in Georgia, Heikki Talvitie.

According to Kote Gabashvili, head of the parliamentary Committee of Foreign Affairs, the former Ambassador of Finland to Russia is a passive, incorrect and incompetent person. “His position on international fora is not what the Georgian side expects. Georgian diplomats were often surprised and indignant at his actions,” stated Gabashvili. According to the committee chair, Georgia is not a place where old diplomats should wait until the pension age comes about, and suggests Talvitie to look for a “safe haven” of his career in more peaceful conditions, for example Iceland. Gabashvili seems to be able to say the aforementioned deriving from the fact that Talvitie spends most of his time outside Georgian borders.

According to the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Talvitie’s passivity is easily discernible against the background of support expressed by international organizations and institutions to Georgia.

Unlike Kote Gabashvili, Salome Zurabishvili refrains from evaluating the performance showed by the European Commission representative. Zurabishvili just mentioned that only Javier Solana, High Representative of the European Union for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, is responsible for deciding the issue of Talvitie’s withdrawal.

Gabashvili made one more sensational statement. The chair of the parliamentary committee on Foreign Affairs stated that it is not ruled out to place existence of the acting Georgian peacekeeping forces in Kosovo to under question. Gabashvili avoided speaking about this fact in details and touched upon just “staff problems.”

The MP thinks the stationing of Georgian peacekeepers in Kosovo bears political importance and the government of Georgia must do its best to have the blue helmets in all three places – Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan.

The “explosion” of the former Ambassador of Georgia to Germany took place at a joint session of the Foreign Affairs and European Integration Committees, wherein the report of the Foreign Affairs Ministry about its activities in 2004 and future plans was listened.

The Foreign Affairs Minister Salome Zurabishvili has spoken about the reorganization underway at her ministry. Particularly it turned out that 26 subdivisions of the central apparatus has been reduced to 19, and 405 positions to 335. Parallel to this, salaries of ministry employees increased by seven times and this trend will continue in the future. Besides, the Department of Relations with Diasporas and the Center of Protection of Cultural Legacies have been established at the ministry. The minister also underlined that the process of returning the Leville Palace is commenced.

According to Zurabishvili, Georgian Embassies have been established in Bulgaria, Romania, Vatican, and Jordan. New embassy will be established in the People’s Republic of China as well.

The minister stated that the priority of the Foreign Affairs Ministry in 2004 was covering debts of the embassies and this goal has been fulfilled. Also, a revision group has been set up, which will inspect the embassies with excessive expenditures.