President’s Spokesperson: 'Cutting Diplomatic Ties with Moscow was not our Whim' Responding to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s remarks that Moscow is ready to restore diplomatic ties with Tbilisi, President Saakashvili’s spokesperson said on January 26 that it would only happen after Moscow shuts down its embassies in Sokhumi and Tskhinvali. “Diplomatic relations with Russia will be restored only after illegally opened [Russia’s] so called embassies in Sokhumi and Tskhinvali are closed down. It was not our whim to cut diplomatic ties with Russia; this step was undertaken after Russia’s invasion into Georgia and occupation of 20% of our territories,” Manana Manjgaladze, the Georgian President’s spokesperson, said.

NSC Chief: U.S.-Georgia Defense Cooperation Deepens Assumptions that defense cooperation between Washington and Tbilisi has been downscaled in recent years are “almost completely made up” and “erroneous”, Giga Bokeria, secretary of Georgia’s National Security Council, said. He said in an interview with the Georgian weekly magazine, Tabula, that President Obama’s reservation over a section of the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act, which calls for “normalization” of military cooperation with Georgia, including the sale of defensive arms, was more a legal issue about constitutional authorities of legislative and executive branches and it should not be interpreted as if the Obama administration was against deepening defense cooperation with Georgia.

HRW: Georgia’s Human Rights Record 'Uneven' Georgia’s human rights record remained “uneven” last year, Human Rights Watch said in its annual report released on January 22. The report is a review of human rights developments in the world for 2011. In respect of Georgia the report lists use of excessive force by the police to disperse anti-government protests in Tbilisi in May, “restrictions on freedom of association and media”, forced evictions of IDPs living in temporary shelters in Tbilisi, as well as violation of labor rights, in particular during a strike by steel plant workers in Kutaisi, among the concerns.