Georgian Dream Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has denounced the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s recent Hague Declaration, which included a number of critical provisions and resolutions on Georgia, as “absurd,” linking its adoption to the “deep state” and claiming that the OSCE has been “drawn into” what he described as a process aimed at changing the government in Georgia.
The OSCE PA on July 8 adopted the wide-ranging Hague Declaration and accompanying resolutions, with the declaration expressing “serious concerns” over Georgia’s “democratic backsliding” and a separate critical resolution on Georgia, sponsored by GD critic U.S. Representative Joe Wilson, calling for the release of “all political prisoners,” the repeal or revision of “restrictive legislation,” and Georgia’s launch of a “genuine reform process.”
Kobakhidze’s July 13 briefing, held five days after the adoption of the Hague Declaration, extensively focused on the “deep state” — GD’s frequently invoked conspiracy theory alleging that informal oligarchic powers control a number of Western states and institutions and seek to undermine the Georgian government.
“Like other European institutions operating under informal oligarchic influence, the OSCE has now also been openly drawn into a process aimed at changing the government in Georgia through unfair and shameful accusations, sanctions, and other instruments of pressure or blackmail, and replacing it with agents loyal to the ‘deep state,’” Kobakhidze said at the start of the briefing.
He went on to expand on the “deep state” theory, claiming that many Western countries and institutions are under its influence, while also lashing out at the former United National Movement government, which he said represented the “agent network” of the “deep state.”
Kobakhidze claimed Georgia became a “main target” of the “deep state” after it refused to open a “second front” against Russia in 2022 and join sanctions. He said the government’s position triggered a “campaign” against Georgia using all available instruments, “including once-respected European institutions.”
“The resolution adopted by the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly is precisely part of this process,” Kobakhidze asserted, “fully repeating the absurd accusations that the European bureaucracy operating under informal oligarchic influence uses to encourage radicalism and revolutionary processes in Georgia, which, according to their calculations, must ultimately end with a change of government and the return of their obedient agents to power.”
According to Kobakhidze, protests inside the country and sanctions from abroad are the “only instruments” in the hands of the “deep state” against Georgia, saying their resources have been “fully exhausted” after what he said were “failed revolutions” in recent years.
“Therefore, they are now trying to pressure the country through sanctions and resolutions, so that the Georgian population abandons the right path,” he said, adding that under the Georgian Dream government, “this attempt is also doomed to fail.”
In response to a question from a pro-government Imedi TV journalist on how OSCE-Georgia relations would continue, Kobakhidze said, “Cooperation with the OSCE will continue. However, the quality of this cooperation will depend on how the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly itself continues its work — whether it remains at the level of Joe Wilson or rises above the level of Joe Wilson.”
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