U.S. Reiterates Concerns Over Georgia's Foreign Agent Law, Pledges More Actions

The United States on Tuesday reiterated its concerns about Georgia’s recently passed “Foreign Agents” law as the Georgian Government is poised to begin its implementation by establishing a registry for civil society groups and media organizations, TURAN’s Washington correspondent reports.

“Our message on this continues to be the same. The concerns that we had about this legislation continue to be very real and they continue to be very serious,” State Department’s Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel told a daily briefing when responding to TURAN’s questions.

He went on to add, “This is, frankly, a legislation that looks like it’s right out of the Kremlin’s playbook, a targeting of humanitarian organizations, NGOs, human rights defenders, journalists.  And so this is something we’ll certainly be paying close attention to.”

Patel’s comments came as Georgia’s Justice Ministry had issued a bylaw establishing a department responsible for registering and monitoring organisations labelled foreign agents ahead of the law’s implementation in the coming days.

Speaking before the Senate Foreign Affairs Subcommittee Tuesday afternoon, the State Department’s top official in charge of Eurasia, Ambassador James O’Brien, also addressed the issue saying that Georgia was “on the wrong path” by turning “their backs on a path to EU and NATO”, and that the only group that seems very happy about this turn, was Russia.

“If you look at the recent statements by their [Russian] chief propagandists, they are welcoming this turn, and Russia has moved its Black Sea Fleet into Abkhazia…. So the suggestion by the [Georgian Dream] leadership that this is a neutral move is, I think, belied by what’s happening,” he said.

As for the Western response, O’Brien said that the U.S. is reviewing all of its assistance to Georgia after recently postponing a major military exercise with Tbilisi. “I expect we will have something to say about that soon,” he added.   “The EU has said that Georgia’s path to joining the EU is largely suspended now, and that may be informally reviewed in a couple of months,” he reminded.

When it comes to potential sanctions, O’Brien went on to explain, “We are considering our options there. I won’t preview anything, but we are looking at it. It’s not only those who benefited from corruption, but those who are involved in violations of human rights, as under the global Magnitsky Act…  but all of those, we have announced a policy that restricts access to the United States already in that area.”

Last week, a bipartisan leaders of U.S. Helsinki Commission sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling for the Biden administration to sanction former Georgian PM and billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili and his inner circle, saying “the pace and severity of events on the ground” call for urgent action.

“We believe the time is right to begin the process of leveling individual financial sanctions against key nodes of corruption and malign influence in Georgia—specifically, Bidzina Ivanishvili and his inner circle,” reads the letter that was obtained by TURAN’s Washington correspondent.

“To paraphrase Deputy Assistant Secretary [Joshua] Huck’s testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Europe Subcommittee, all tools are on the table. Now we must use them,” the authors wrote.

The full copy of the letter can be seen here:  https://x.com/ralakbar/status/1818471409812680832