Saakashvili calls on Russia to restart talks
President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia said Monday that his government planned to renounce the unilateral use of force and to invite Russia to begin talks.
Mr. Saakashvili told the French newspaper Le Figaro that he would make the offer in a speech to the European parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday. He said he would “make a pledge to not use force.”
“This is a controversial initiative because every country, when it is occupied, has the right and even the obligation to fight, including by military means, to defend its sovereignty,” he said in the interview, which was published in the paper’s Web site. “But I see things differently.”
He added: “Georgia must become a modern, European country. We cannot end up like Afghanistan.”