Vasif Huseynov
On April 15–16, the newly elected President of Georgia, Mikheil Kavelashvili, paid an official visit to Azerbaijan. The visit was of notable symbolic importance since it was Kavelashvili’s first foreign visit as president. The Azerbaijani side appreciated this gesture, as Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated in the joint press conference with Kavelashvili, “It once again reflects the essence of Azerbaijan-Georgia relations and the friendship and brotherhood between our peoples” (President of Azerbaijan, April 16). Earlier on January 17, the re-elected Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze also paid his first official visit to the Azerbaijani capital after the elections (President of Azerbaijan, January 17). Aliyev characterized this as the emergence of a “wonderful tradition” and underlined its symbolic importance of the relations between the two countries (President of Azerbaijan, April 16).
This shift in Georgian politics has come on the heels of the country’s deteriorating relations with its Western partners, particularly the European Union, which used to be the first destination of Georgian leaders after their election in the recent past. Most Western states have yet to recognize the legitimacy of the new Georgian government given allegations against the ruling party of falsifying last year’s election results (see EDM, October 28, November 5, 2024, January 13). No positive development has been marked yet in this context, although the Georgian government was optimistic about a potential reset in relations with the United States under U.S. President Donald Trump (see EDM, April 9).
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