EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW w/ Maka Botchorishvili, the Georgia Minister of Foreign Affairs
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you will not regret it. humanevents.com/poso, totally free, the Poso Daily Brief. - Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard today's edition of Human Events Daily. We had the opportunity to sit down with the Foreign Minister of Georgia.

We're so honored here on Human Events Daily to be sitting down with Maka Borchstili. She is the Foreign Minister of Georgia. Madam Foreign Minister, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you very much for inviting me. So tell me, what brings you to CPAC? Why come to CPAC now? Well, I think that's the best venue to show that we are ready to fight for values,

that needs to be defended because that's very important today. Values that are Christian values, values that are shared widely and that are under attack for

under the name of liberals very much in today's Europe and not only in Europe. And we see that it is very much related to security, to stability, and it is very much related to defending democracy as well. So that's very important. And this really seems to have been the biggest...

that I'm putting together, the theme is sovereignty versus globalism. And because there's a paradox here, an irony where in order to, for those freedom fighters, for those sovereigntists, people who respect their culture, their heritage, their national identity,

We are faced constantly under threat from Brussels, from Davos, from the party that supports war, the party that supports all people having open borders and spreading between cultures. And so the parody, of course, paradox, of course, is that...

even though we are not globalists, we can be friends. Because this is real friendship. And you respect the differences, but you understand when you have a common interest.

Absolutely. And I think Georgia is the best example of how these fights can be conducted because defending sovereignty is essential to protect national interests and national interests can protect peace and security where we live. So that's very important. And Georgia is a very good example, especially today's world, to look at us.

And it is good to see and we are happy to see that we are not alone. And there are people who also share the views that

sovereign rights of nations needs to be respected and sovereign rights are not bad and sovereign rights can be also be global and we can be also friends and share our common interests. This originally was the purpose of the United Nations, I thought, was to protect the rights of individual nations

And yet we see so many times that these organizations, whether it be the UN, whether it be the EU, whether it be WHO and so many of these other things, it turns out that they seem to be the ones who are now encroaching on rights. And of course, in Hungary, there was the issue of George Soros NGOs. We have the same issue in the United States.

However, President Trump is cleaning that up. We have this issue all across Eastern Europe where these non-government organizations will come in and then try to take power away from actually the elected government. And in many cases, they will be supporting governments that have nothing to do with the interests of the people of that area.

Look, again, Georgia is a very good example. We didn't like Soviet Union because we didn't have sovereign rights under the Soviet Union, right? And we liked European Union because our expectation is that this is the union of free nations where sovereign rights are respected, sovereign rights of nations.

But unfortunately, again, vis-à-vis Georgia, we see instrumentalization of this topic of European integration and using this topic against sovereignty of Georgia, which is a very painful process. And again, that is something very important when we talk about

contemporary Europe, today's European Union, it is important that for the sake of European integration, for the sake of European future, respecting the sovereign rights of nations, that matters a lot. That's very important that we respect sovereign rights of nations and we respect sovereignty of the countries.

For the sake of security of Europe. That's very important. And the issues that you're speaking of, this is why the United Kingdom in 2016 voted to leave the European Union, because the British people agreed that although the European Union had that

The idea seemed to be very, very good, but in actuality, the interests were not being expressed. And instead, their sovereignty was diminished by membership in the European Union. And instead, the European Union was then dictating and European permission. And then Ursula von der Leyen and these people who are not elected by anyone are then...

putting their interests and the interests of their supporters ahead of the actual constituents, the voters and the citizens of these nations. So that's why in 2016, UK decided to vote. We're done. We're done with this experiment. We're going back to the rights of the nation, the rights of each state. Now,

I'm coming from the United States. We're not a member of the European Union. We are a member of NATO. We are members of the United Nations and a number of these organizations. And yet, from President Trump's perspective and from our new Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, it's been a total shift in the policy of the administration where rather than forcing other countries to...

go along with whatever policy we want. All that they've been asking are for the rights of free elections to be upheld, such as Romania, the rights of free speech to be upheld all across the world. And in many cases now, we're hearing a new theme that trade deals and potentially even security compacts will be judged based on the upholding of free speech, free elections,

in all of the countries where we are doing these kinds of deals. What would your message be to the US side from Georgia's perspective? Thank you for mentioning that because what we hear from the new administration in the United States, what we hear from President Trump and State Secretary Rubio, it's very promising in the sense that that's exactly what we were talking about for many years in Georgia.

And respecting democracy, first of all, means to respect the choice of people, what people choose for their government. And that's again, Georgia is a good example of how we fight to defend choice of Georgian people, Georgian nation, because government is under attack because somebody doesn't like what Georgian people decided to have. And that's again, good example.

We have faced quite strong pressure in Georgia, and I think that we need to, and especially when it comes to relationship with the United States, we have big hope that this negative era, which was coming from pretty much dictated by deep state, will end and we will have possibility to renew Georgia-U.S. relationship and to...

use this relationship for the benefit of United Nations interests, United States interests and Georgia's interests. And I do believe that we do have common interests and we have to work for that. And for that we do need to cooperate.

Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, as you mentioned, there's been a question of the relations between the post-Soviet states and the United States. And so they saw the emergence of countries like Belarus, like Ukraine, like Georgia, so many other, Kazakhstan, so many others that have come in. So these are non-EU member states.

and yet are their own states in their own right. So the question, obviously, of the normalization of relations between the U.S. and the post-Soviet nations. Do you believe that President Trump has the ability to do this? Georgia is the country, post-Soviet country, state,

that has been always the most reliable partner for the United States. We have been always there to show that we are reliable partners for the United States. Georgia has been the largest non-NATO country contributing to NATO missions when it was in the interests of the United States.

So that is something very important to take into account when we talk about Georgia-US relationship. And also look at the reasons. If we see that this is not in a very good shape today, what are the reasons for that today? And that we will definitely go to that so-called deep state and what is run from there and why this relationship is maybe not in a...

best shape today. So we have to look at that, find the reasons and work for the best interests of United States and Georgia. And President Trump is committed to

pushing for peace deals, not only between Ukraine-Russia confrontation, but also Israel-Gaza peace deal, potentially, or a nuclear deal with Iran, as well as putting some peace in Asia, China, Taiwan, all of these various issues. Do you believe this is the right approach? How does Georgia view these discussions? Absolutely. Again, we know very well what peace means.

and what is the price for peace and how important it is for future development and for everything. That's why Georgia was the country that supported US position in United Nations when it was introduced about peace in Ukraine. And we are very much supporting to find peaceful solution of conflict. That's very important. Georgia itself

has 20% of its territories occupied by Russia and we are still looking for peaceful means to find a peaceful solution of this conflict and we know very well how much important is

to secure stability in the country for economic development and for the future of any Georgian citizen. So that's why we think that the initiative of President Trump that is related to peaceful, to achieve peace in Ukraine is very important. And I hope that they will succeed in this process.

We've taken the position and many of us who have been associated with Trump movement, MAGA, CPAC, they say, are you pro-war? Are you pro-Russia? Are you pro this, pro that? I'm anti-war.

We've seen, and my family is coming from a Polish background, and they saw World War I. They saw World War II. We don't want to see World War III. I think World War III, nuclear-armed countries would be the greatest potential threat to

to sovereignty, to life, to humanity on our planet. And so for those of us who have, maybe we have disagreements over particular issues, all sorts of issues, there's always healthy forums for debate on that. But I certainly hope that standing up against the threat of nuclear war is something all nations can agree on.

Absolutely. I mean, again, that's exactly what we are fighting for. This is peace and we are against war. That's absolutely the position of Georgian government. And we are defending this position. Only thing that we don't want is confrontation and war. And we see that

Lots of attempts we experienced to somehow destabilize Georgia and to have another hotspot in this area. So that's very dangerous and we are standing for peace and we are...

very proudly defending that peace in our country and not only in our country. I don't want to take up too much more of your time. It's a busy event. I understand you have a busy schedule. Do you plan to come to the U.S. anytime soon? I would love to, and I hope that it will happen sometime soon. Well, when you come, please come visit us in Washington, D.C. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, madam. Thank you.