Day: April 17, 2026

The post Zelensky open to talks with Putin in Turkiye first appeared on The South Caucasus News – SouthCaucasusNews.com.

Georgian Dream Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, together with GD Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili and Government Administration Head Levan Zhorzholiani, is participating in the 2026 Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey.

Antalya Diplomacy Forum, hosted by Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the auspices of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is “a high-level gathering of professionals who deal with diplomacy, such as political leaders, diplomats, opinion makers or academics,” according to the Forum’s website. This year, the Forum takes place on April 17-19, with a theme of “Mapping Tomorrow, Managing Uncertainties.”

Kobakhidze’s participation in the forum, which he also attended last year, comes amid the Georgian Dream government’s wider isolation from the country’s traditional Western partners and its absence from some major international gatherings, including the World Economic Forum in Davos, where GD officials have not been invited for a second consecutive year in 2026.

Panel Discussion

On April 17, Irakli Kobakhidze participated in the panel discussion on “Mapping Tomorrow, Managing Uncertainties,” speaking alongside the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and the President of North Macedonia, Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova. The panel was moderated by Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, member of the Turkish parliament.

Kobakhidze began his address by saying that the “global landscape is shaped by geopolitical tensions” and that “conflicts are affecting everything,” including trade routes, energy, transport, and economic stability, adding that it is “essential” to find solutions.

He then made several remarks on the EU, saying, “We are eager to become a fully-fledged member of the European Union…But we also see that the European Union is facing some very essential and fundamental challenges.”

The GD prime minister then said the EU, for many years, had some “specific strength,” naming in particular “strong identity,” “strong level of prosperity,” and “strength of democracy and rule of law.” He added, however, that “if you look at the European Union at its current state, it is facing challenges in all those three directions.”

“We are very much concerned about that and we are hopeful that the situation will change at the European Union in the future.”

Kobakhidze then spoke about the South Caucasus, saying the region is affected by “uncertainties” and “global challenges” but is also “gaining some specific importance” in light of them, adding that Georgia, as a “reliable bridge” between Europe and Asia, tries to strengthen its “connectivity function” and that it “can offer some special services to our partners in different parts of the world” as trade routes face disrupted.

“Our approach, which is pro-peace, pro-progress, and development, has proven successful,” he added, claiming the country has had the “highest” economic growth number in Europe in the past five years.

“Our vision is to keep peace and stability in our country and to ensure economic progress and promote connectivity,” he said, adding, “We [will] not only keep peace in our country, but also promote peace in the [wider] South Caucasus region, and we are so much happy to be a very strong partner with Turkey in this respect.”

Kobakhidze then spoke about the “lack of leadership” in the world, saying it is “one of the key problems” of the current global politics. “There is an impression that there is some [kind of] HR manager with wrong intention, who is recruiting the leadership in different nations, instead of a political system that should be responsible for recruiting the leaders for nations,” he said, without giving any names and adding, “Some informal influences should be behind these negative developments.”

He also spoke about what he called “informal influences” in international organizations, claiming that Georgia’s case demonstrates such influences. “Multilateral institutions – the specific ones – instead of protecting the sovereignty of different nations, are themselves challenging the sovereignty of different nations. Georgia is one of the ‘good’ examples of this,” he said, without referring to any specific institution.

He then asserted that the “rules-based international order” and “value-based international order” are “unfortunately non-existent anymore.”

During the second part of the panel, Kobakhidze also spoke about the importance of diplomacy, saying, “Georgia is 23 centuries old, and diplomacy is part of our DNA.” He added that Georgia has had to exist in “a very complicated geopolitical environment and at the crossroads of empires,” but has survived with diplomacy as its “main tool.”

“That is why we strongly believe in diplomacy,” Kobakhidze said, adding that since the restoration of its independence, Georgia “made many mistakes” and was “not diplomatic enough, not pragmatic enough,” but that it “learned a lot of lessons.”

Meetings

On April 17, Irakli Kobakhidze met with OSCE Secretary General Feridun Sinirlioğlu. The government administration reported that Kobakhidze reaffirmed the Georgian government’s “strong commitment to democratic principles, the protection of human rights, and the rule of law.” According to the press release, the discussions “also touched upon Georgia’s declared intention to assume the OSCE Chairmanship in 2027.” Maka Botchorishvili and Levan Zhorzholiani also attended the meeting.

“We discussed Georgia’s commitment to democratic principles and human rights, as well as our engagement with the OSCE, emphasizing the importance of continued dialogue and cooperation,” Kobakhidze wrote on X following the meeting.

Georgian Dream Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili also held separate talks. Among others, she met with Ferit Hoxha, Albania’s Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, and Ayaz Baetov, Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Kyrgyzstan.

More to follow…

Also Read:

• 21/03/2026 – Kobakhidze Visits Hungary, Meets Orbán, Addresses CPAC