23.06.2019, Athens.
The Secretary General of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy Andreas Mikhailidis named circumstances proving the Georgian authorities’ responsibility for the incident, which had taken place during the Assembly’s session in Tbilisi, RIA Novosti reports on June 22.
Andreas Mikhailidis said to journalists that both the political leadership of the country and the leadership of the Georgian parliament should take responsibility for what happened during the I.A.O. session. To explain his opinion he pointed out that the Georgian authorities had been aware in detail of the structure and composition of the upcoming I.A.O. meeting. So they knew that a Russian citizen would be the chairman of this event.
“The General Assembly is always led by its president, who is Russian. The head of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy is the Secretary General, who is always of Greek nationality, today it is me,” said Mikhailidis.
On June 20, the Georgian capital Tbilisi hosted the 26th session of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy. According to the event’s protocol, the Russian I.A.O chairman performed the speaker’s functions. This fact was used as a pretext by some radical deputies from the Georgian opposition to proceed to a provocation and to disrupt the meeting.
Together with this, Tbilisi witnessed large-scale protests against Russia resulting in unrest and clashes with the police.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency