Georgia's Ambassador to Turkey, George Janjgava, has said that the Georgia will not attend the next 3+3 Caucasus platform conference, which will be held in Turkey.
Ankara has often called for a six-nation platform made up of Turkey, Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia to maintain lasting peace, stability, and cooperation in the Caucasus, presenting it as a win-win proposal for all regional countries.
On the margins of the recent Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) conference in Islamabad, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu stated that Turkey expects Georgia would join the future meeting.
Last month, Russia held the first meeting of the regional platform. Tbilisi, on the other hand, has refused to attend, claiming Russian aggression towards the former Soviet republic.
Nonetheless, Georgia promotes improved regional connections and cooperation with its neighbours. Last month, the country's prime minister stated that it has taken meaningful efforts with Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to secure long-term stability in the area.
During the online Conference of Ambassadors, Irakli Garibashvili remarked, "it is absolutely crucial for us to build enduring peace in the area."
Georgia sees Turkey and Azerbaijan as "strategic allies," and Armenia as a "historical and decent neighbour" in a neighbourhood that also includes Iran, according to Janjgava.
"However, Russia is a country that occupies 20% of Georgian land," the envoy stated emphatically.
Diplomatic relations between Russia and Georgia, which aspires to join the European Union and NATO, have deteriorated since Moscow invaded two of Georgia's provinces in a battle and recognised the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where Russian forces are now stationed. The rest of the world, on the other hand, continues to see them as Georgian territory.
Following the 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict, Europe's top human rights court judged Russia liable for a slew of abuses in these areas in 2021.
After the hostilities, the Strasbourg-based court ruled that Russia had effective control over Georgia's separatist regions, and that it was responsible for ill-treatment and acts of torture against Georgian prisoners of war, arbitrary detentions, and the "inhuman and degrading treatment" of 160 detained Georgian civilians held in crowded confinement for more than two weeks in August 2008.
Following the Nagorno-Karabakh war last year, Turkey and Azerbaijan suggested the Caucasus platform.
Since the end of war in the Nagorno-Karabakh in 1994, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been involved in a decades-long conflict over the area of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Moscow brokered a peace deal last November 2020 to end six weeks of fighting over the territory, during which more than 6,600 people were killed.
