The next meeting between Georgian Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Relations with Russia Zurab Abashidze and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin will be held in the second half of January in Prague, Trend reports referring to TASS.
"A preliminary agreement has been reached with Mr. Karasin that our next meeting in Prague will be held in the second half of January next year," Abashidze told TASS on Tuesday. He also noted that the parties "will address specific issues related to cooperation between the two countries in trade, economy, transport and humanitarian problems that have piled up over the past few months and the prospects for developing cooperation in these areas."
He added that the meeting in Prague would be attended by "representatives of the Georgian and Russian Foreign Ministries, Economy and Transport Ministries and, just like during the previous meetings in that format."
Karasin earlier said in Moscow that he planned to meet with Abashidze next year. "The meeting will be held next year, after the New Year holidays," he said answering a question from a TASS correspondent.
Tbilisi severed diplomatic relations with Moscow in 2008 after Russia had recognized Abkhazia’s and South Ossetia’s independence. The Georgian Foreign Ministry said back then it would maintain consular relations with Russia. In November 2012, Georgia’s then Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili established an office of prime minister’s special envoy for relations with Russia and appointed diplomat Zurab Abarshidze, Georgia’s former ambassador to Russia in 2000-2004, to that post. On December 14, 2012, Abashidze’s first meeting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin took place in a Geneva suburb. It resumed direct dialogue between the two countries’ officials suspended after the 2008 developments. Further meetings were held in Prague, with the latest one taking place in October 2018.