Mdinaradze: Gakharia Established Chorchana Checkpoint to Provoke Armed Conflict

At today's briefing, Mdinaradze stated that the former Prime Minister and leader of the For Georgia party, Giorgi Gakharia, is no different from the members of the "Collective Agency," adding that "he also receives tasks from the common owner." As he said, by opening a police checkpoint near Chorchana, Gakharia "organized an unheard-of provocation, which elicited the harshest response from the Russian side."

"In response, the occupiers opened three times more checkpoints, seized an even larger area, and the people of Chorchana village lost access to the forest they used to enjoy, resulting in reputational damage to the state.

However, the main purpose of the provocation was to artificially incite a new armed confrontation, which could most likely escalate into a large-scale war.

We can consider this action a mini-model of a probable provocation, which he will definitely carry out if he encounters trouble with the government," said Mamuka Mdinaradze.

The leader of Georgian Dream listed other instances when Giorgi Gakharia, while in power, "deliberately damaged the government's image, doing so in accordance with tasks received from outside the country." Among these were special operations in nightclubs, Pankisi, and Mestia, as well as the crackdown on the June 20 rally.

"Obviously, a person might ask - if all this was done by one man and he was harming the state in such a way, how did it happen that he was promoted from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Prime Minister? The answer is not straightforward, although we can consider it a kind of tribute paid by us to Gakharia's masters.

However, this decision was especially important for the Georgian Dream team because Gakharia resigned from the Ministry of Internal Affairs at that time. The system, which should represent the country, was purposefully damaging its reputation through the aforementioned targeted provocations. It should also be noted that such forces supported Gakharia; if not then, our team is still accountable to these forces, and we do our best not to enter into a deep conflict with them,” Mdinaradze said.

Giorgi Gakharia has not yet responded to the ruling party's accusations regarding the "Chorchana incident." In 2023, during an interview with Radio Liberty, he was asked what he had done to reduce Russian influence in Georgia during his time in power. Gakharia cited the story of Chorchana as one of the examples:

"You can look and see what the history of Chorchana was in the direction of South Ossetia, in the direction of Samachablo, where, simply put, our forces and the police demonstrated heroism. In fact, it was the first time this bordering and seizure of Georgian land occurred in a rather difficult situation, but we defended it."

At the end of August 2019, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia opened a Georgian police checkpoint in Chorchana village of Khashuri municipality. The checkpoint is located approximately 240 meters from the administrative border line, in territory controlled by the central government of Georgia, and is bordered by the occupied Tsnelisi. The establishment of the police checkpoint was preceded by colorful markings on trees in the area between Tsnelisi and Chorchana in January 2019, which the EU monitoring mission assessed as signs of "borderization." However, the Ossetian side did not take responsibility for these markings. The de facto authorities of Tskhinvali are still demanding control over the Chorchana checkpoint.

Giorgi Gakharia served as Prime Minister of Georgia from September 2019 until February 18, 2021, when he resigned. He was the Minister of Internal Affairs from 2017 to 2019, the Minister of Economy from 2016 to 2017, and the Business Ombudsman from 2013 to 2016.